


you got underneath my skin, and then you broke (into) my heart

by magnetichearts



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man (Tom Holland Movies)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst, Developing Relationship, F/M, Fluff, Friends to Lovers, Marriage Proposal, POV Alternating, Relationship Study, Wedding, but i loved it and i worked really hard on it so i hope you guys enjoy it, it also ballooned into this monster it wasn't supposed to be anywhere near this long, loosely follows the plot of infinity war and endgame with some spideychelle moments in there, this is 100 percent mj and peter figuring things out
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-17
Updated: 2019-08-17
Packaged: 2020-09-05 21:06:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 22,120
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20279818
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/magnetichearts/pseuds/magnetichearts
Summary: She thinks she is like Orpheus, and Peter Eurydice. She is forever destined to be chasing after him, and he would always remain just out of her reach, just beyond her fingertips.Loving Peter is like loving a hurricane, and it is her who will be left to deal with the devastation after, trying to put the pieces of herself and everyone she loves back together.or; mj and peter learn how to be friends, fall in love along the way, and break each other's heart more than once. it's up to them to decide if what they have is worth fighting for, and if they're meant to be something beyond just friends(title from "whisper something" by aaron sprinkle)





	you got underneath my skin, and then you broke (into) my heart

**Author's Note:**

> Hey guys! So this fic was written over the course of literally maybe a week because the idea took a hold of me and just wouldn't let go until I got it down. It's very long and probably one of the most emotional pieces I've ever written, so I hope you guys like it because I'm genuinely taking such a big chance posting it. 
> 
> Several of these scenes were inspired by the Spider-Man PS4 game and the original Marvel Comics, and features characters who haven't appeared on the MCU screen, although the characters are portrayed by their MCU counterparts. 
> 
> This fic would absolutely not be possible without the support of [ annie](https://anniebibananie.tumblr.com), [zee](https://delmars.tumblr.com), and [jessie](https://blaisezabini.tumblr.com)! All of them are fantastic bloggers and writers in their own regards, and I highly recommend checking their stuff out. They massively cheerleaded me through this fic and to the end, and it would not have been possible to finish this without them!

** _mj_ **

She figures it out post-homecoming, post-Liz, post-a lot of things, to be honest. 

She’s  _ busy, _ ok? And no matter how  observant obsessed she might be about Peter Parker, she’s definitely more obsessed about her grades. So yeah, it takes her justifiably longer than it should, and she’s definitely not as sure as she should be. 

But she really doesn’t have an excuse for why she’s so unsure. It probably has something to do with the fact that she can’t help but notice everything  _ else _ about him besides his habit of swinging around Queens in a spandex suit given to him by  _ Tony Stark. _

So yeah. It’s hard to focus solely on the Spider-Man part of the whole thing when she can’t help but notice the way the light in his eyes shine in physics, the careful way his fingers work at assembling Lego pieces, the way his hand gets caught when he runs it through his hair because it’s such a tangled mess. 

She’s  _ not _ obsessed. (ok, so she might be. just a little. but she dares even a god to look peter parker in his soft brown eyes and not find themselves enraptured by them)

** _peter_ **

The thing about MJ is that, once he  _ starts _ really noticing her, it’s not exactly like he can stop. 

He hasn't exactly been the best at noticing her before. She had always been in the background, a peripheral figure, someone who was always there but never  _ present,  _ never really an active participant in the shit show that was his life. 

He’s not ashamed (ok, maybe a little. but not much) to admit that his crush on Liz had sort of blocked out everyone else he could see. In his defense, it was Liz, and he knows practically everyone gets it. 

Liz was smart and kind and pretty, and it was just a matter of time before everyone in the school fell for her, at one time or another. He thinks about it, sometimes. She likes her new school, is doing pretty well. He misses her, but misses her in the way one misses their friend. 

Liz might have been his first crush, but she had been a friend of his as well, and that’s the most important thing.

But with MJ, it’s different. So different it takes him embarrassingly long to figure it out. 

** _mj_ **

The bad thing is that once she figures it out, her sleep schedule goes to shit  _ even more. _

She doesn’t exactly have the healthiest one already, too reliant on caffeine for a 16 year old kid, but this information is a stressor. 

He doesn’t know that she knows, of course. She doesn’t think Peter actually knows much of anything about her. It’s still only just a few weeks post-homecoming, and he’s still in a bit of a daze with everything that happened with Liz’s dad. 

But it becomes somewhat of a ritual for her, sitting on her bed at 3 am, reading her book and scanning the skyline. 

Because as much as she wants to believe he’s back home before dark, she knows Peter Parker, has seen the dark bags underneath his eyes enough times to know that’s not true.

So she watches the skyline. He always swings past her apartment around 3:30, and so she watches. 

She likes to think of herself as protecting him, but really, she’s protecting herself. 

** _peter _ **

Oddly enough, it’s a decathlon practice that changes his perspective on things. 

The thing about MJ that he likes is that she is so effortlessly herself. For someone who has basically a double life, one that he hides from the entire world except Mr. Stark, Ned, and May, it gets hard, putting up a front for everyone. 

He admires her for that, for the way she doesn’t become a shred less sarcastic or weird after she’s been appointed captain, how she so devoutly refuses to change herself for the sake of someone else. 

He thinks the world could use more people like her. 

But when he misses yet  _ another _ practice, he feels her eyes on him meets them with his own. She looks at him, blinks once, and turns away. 

Even from here, he can feel her disappointment, but it’s not exactly pure disappointment. More like an acceptance of reality. Like she knows why he’s gone, why he’s missing, and she’s made her peace with it, but some part of her still expects more from him. 

It is this that wrecks him, because for some reason, MJ expects more from him, and no one else. Like she thinks he’s better than everyone else. She doesn’t expect anything from anyone, he knows this, just rolls her eyes at practically everything everyone says, whether it’s funny or not. 

But that fact that she expects something from  _ him, _ well, that changes everything. 

** _mj_ **

The thing is, she’s awkward. Not like Peter, not like  _ endearingly _ awkward. Just, plain awkward, all gangly limbs and jokes at the wrong minute, a permanent disinterested face and apathy radiating off of her. She’s just all long limbs and messed up teenager, and she wonders if this feeling will ever go away, if she’ll ever find a place where she feels like she belongs. 

She doesn’t really know how to respond when Peter starts glancing over at her more often than he used to, so her go to becomes flipping him off. 

And yes, she’s aware that this is the opposite of her true feelings towards him, but see aforementioned issues above. 

So yeah. She’s not really sure what to do, so in true fashion, she fucks it up anyways. 

(that’s kind of her job, though)

** _peter_ **

_ Fuck, _ he’s screwed. The problem is that Liz is the kind of pretty that smacks you in the face, the kind that prompted him to stare after her like a puppy dog, the kind that made his head fuzzy and his heart pound, that dried out his tongue and made him stammer even more than usual. 

The problem with MJ is that she’s not that kind of pretty, and because he’s literally terrible at picking up signals, he doesn’t notice it. 

Well, she is the kind of smack you in your face pretty, but she actively tries to fade into the background, tries to not smack everyone in the face with her beauty. He wonders why, because as far as he can tell, she’s just as funny and smart as Liz, and it’s not like she’s not kind. 

She’s just, not  _ open.  _

But he knows he’s screwed, because when he starts showing up to decathlon more and more, finding her disappointed gazes unbearable (this is different from liz, he knew he’d been disappointing her but he’d be unable to stop himself. he can’t bear to continue with mj) he can’t stop staring at her, in the  _ dumbest _ way. 

He drops several pencils, and she gives him a blank look. He waves hi and she flips him off, and it’s weird because he likes it. 

She is unlike anyone else he has ever met before, and somehow, she is made up of all the things that make her amazing. 

But yeah. MJ’s smack you in your face pretty, and once he starts noticing, he’s screwed.

** _mj _ **

The thing is, she knows Ned and Peter would make great friends. They’re loyal, they’re sweet and they’re probably some of the best people she knows. 

(she’s not above admitting they’re probably too good to be friends with her. she’s doesn’t have their optimism)

But how is she supposed to let them in? The thing about friendship is that it is a two way street. She knows Peter and Ned would never hurt her, not on purpose, and even if they did, they’d feel so bad about it, and she’d know. That’s the thing about people with good hearts. You can’t be mad at them, no matter what. 

But she’s not like them. She’s jaded, and she’s guarded. 

Friendship is a two way street, and just because Peter and Ned would rather hurt themselves than hurt her doesn’t mean she’s going to be able to do the same. She’s going to hurt them, eventually, and she doesn’t know if she can live with that. 

Peter and Ned are too good for this world, too full of hope and a desire to help. She’s got to be the bad guy, but she can’t be their bad guy. 

** _peter_ **

He loves the way her hair gets all over the place, how it tangles haphazardly, how it curls. He thinks he might be a little bit obsessed with her hair.

It’s this, oddly enough, that he thinks breaks down the barriers between them, just a little. She’s got walls around her thicker than the Great Wall, but he’s determined to break them down. 

He asks her, a weird and probably dumb question, if she’s ever woken up with her hair in her nose, and he kicks himself right after asking it, because it’s dumb and ridiculous, and now he’ll never know more about her like he wants to. 

He seriously deserves to be put in some institution, or something.

Except she snorts at that, and her eyes crinkle, and she offers him a smile and nods. 

_ Oh, _ he thinks.  _ Oh. _

** _mj_ **

She can’t help it. It’s like a moth being drawn to a flame, how she finds herself becoming absorbed in Peter and Ned, how she finds herself folded into a friendship the same way one finds themself folded into a warm hug.

Study sessions to help just Peter inevitably involve Ned as well, because those two never go anywhere without the other, and then it becomes a race to see who’s the smartest. 

Peter beats them in science and math, every time, but she’s much better at history and english. Ned, surprisingly, knows geography and economics,  _ and _ computer science, so most of the time it ends up being a three way tie that goes to him. 

(she knows she’s not that surprised, just pleasantly aware)

And soon it goes beyond just study sessions at Peter’s, but study sessions at Starbucks and the library, to catching movies without flashcards, to meeting up to eat. 

Ned texts her one night when Peter’s out patrolling, and then they’re grabbing Thai and waiting at Peter’s place for him. 

It becomes a group chat that literally never shuts up, Peter bringing her coffee before school, Ned flinging Legos at the both of them, and her ending up falling asleep on the floor of his bedroom more than once. 

The thing about being guarded is that it’s hard, and tiring, and sometimes it just feels so good to let some people in, even if it’s just a little. The problem is, once you start, you can’t stop. 

The worst thing is that all of this is accompanied by a little bit of dread, like it’s all a ticking clock, and she knows that when it ends, it is going to end terribly. 

But bitter coffee and Peter’s rumpled hair help quell that feeling for a little bit. She ignores it as best she can. 

** _peter_ **

The thing is, he’d never considered what it’d be like to find a friend of yours utterly enchanting.

Sure, Liz had been a friend, but she hadn’t been a  _ friend,  _ hadn’t been someone he’d wanted to tell everything instantly. 

It’s so terrible, because he finds everything about MJ utterly captivating, and he knows Ned’s getting tired of hearing him complain about it.

How’s he supposed to explain how the sharp, quick nature of her smile stabs him in the heart? How when she snorts when laughing, unapologetically, it sends his thoughts into a tailspin? How she’s so smack you in your face pretty he doesn’t understand how everyone else in the world functions with her around? 

Her ski-jump nose and smooth skin fascinate him to no end, but it’s only made more difficult by the fact that he somehow has to function while looking at her now. Apparently that’s a requirement of being friends or something. 

He’s never known about this, and it’s torturous, because all he can think about is continuing to make her laugh, about the way she looks asleep on his bedroom floor. 

He’s acutely aware that everything he has ever wanted is in front of him, and there’s no way he can have it. 

** _mj_ **

She realizes she’s screwed when he becomes the first person she wants to tell when she learns about something new.

** _peter_ **

Every time he looks at her, it is like he is seeing her for the first time. He finds her endlessly fascinating. 

** _mj_ **

She finds herself on top of her apartment building at 3:30 one night, and she tells herself repeatedly it’s  _ not _ because of him. 

She finds that it’s much harder to lie to yourself when the stars are looking at you, so she doesn’t bother lying, when he sees her, all spandex and blue and red. He immediately comes over, does a  _ terrible _ accent (honestly, how does he keep this a secret) and asks her why she’s out so late at night. 

She shrugs, decides to tell him the truth. She loves to think, but sometimes you can get lost in the hurricane that is your own mind. 

They stay there, sitting cross legged on her apartment building in the dead of night. It’s not quiet, it never is in the city, but she likes it. Likes sitting here with him. 

They talk for hours, and watch as the sun bleeds into the sky behind the buildings, and paints the skyline into space. 

** _peter_ **

She can’t know, right? 

He asks Ned one day, who just rolls his eyes and shoves his face back into his noodles, which is code for  _ ask her yourself, man.  _

The problem is he likes the way things are going. Loves them, in fact. So what, he can’t keep the stars out of his eyes whenever he looks at her, and he can’t really function every time she touches him, however lightly. 

Who cares? He’s got her as a friend, and that’s all he needs. 

But he keeps going back to their nights, spent on top of her apartment building, which have become somewhat of a regular thing, and it frightening, because she’s not that different around Spider-Man as she is around him, but he will take any piece of her he can get, so when she tells him something new, he latches on to it as fast as he can. 

The problem is that he thinks he’s falling in love with her even more.

She doesn’t know. She can’t. 

Can she?

** _mj_ **

When it finally happens, she’s prepared. 

Not truly prepared in the sense that one can be for when half the universe gets snapped out of existence, but prepared. 

She knows what’s happening before it really happens, watches Ned disintegrate next to her, watch Harrington attempt to grab students as they pick apart in front of his eyes. 

She knows what’s happening to her before it happens, and her only thought before she vanishes into nothingness is that the dread in her stomach has finally started to ebb away. 

** _peter_ **

He thinks of them, on Titan, of Ned and MJ and May, of peanut butter and banana sandwiches, because  _ jelly sucks, Parker, get it together.  _

He thinks of them when he is on a spaceship, hurtling up to space, and his only thoughts are that even as he is approaching the same stars he and MJ stared up at for so many hours, they don’t look any bigger to them. 

He makes a mental note to tell her before he remembers she doesn’t know, although he’s about 89% sure he’s fooling himself. He’s bad at fooling  _ himself, _ and MJ’s the smartest person he knows. Honestly, he’d be a little weirded out if some part of her didn’t know. 

He can feel it, as his body begins to flake away, and one of his last thoughts as he drifts, beyond  _ idontwannagopleasemrstarkpleaseidontwannago  _ is how he despite not wanting to go, some deep, dark part of him is glad he is going, because he doesn’t think he’d be able to return and live in a world without any of them. 

** _mj_ **

When she comes back, she reappears next to Ned in his bedroom, and there is shrieking, and to be honest, a large portion of it she doesn’t remember. 

What she  _ does _ remember is going back to school, everything feeling slightly off, and she wonders if the feeling will ever go away. She has lost five years, five years of music and tv and people and life, five years of Peter’s smiles and Ned’s hats, five years of her life that had been stolen away from her. 

It’s like that feeling of awkwardness again, and sometimes, she rolls up under the covers and buries her face into her pillow. Maybe she had it right with the whole guard up in the first place.

** _peter_ **

He sees her in school, but nobody really talks to each other for the first two weeks. The teachers are all freaked out, half of them new, and nobody really knows how to handle anything that’s going on. 

I mean, what small talk do you even have after something like this? How’s the weather five years in which half of us fucking  _ died? _

He’s so glad for Ned, though, because Ned understands. Ned can sit with him for hours in silence, and put together Lego pieces. It should have seemed childish, in the wake of everything that has happened, but it is something oddly grounding, oddly helpful. 

School’s silent for weeks, and then Flash makes a joke (old habits are hard to break), MJ snaps back at him, and  _ something _ breaks, because everyone’s a little more normal again, a little easier with talking to each other. Half of them lived, and half of them died, but they all suffered, and so they build a bridge instead of burning one down.

But he keeps seeing her, just like in the periphery of his vision like he had years ago. God, it was years ago. And when he  _ does _ see her for the first time, it really does feel like years, because he knows he went far too long without seeing her frizzy hair and delicate hands. 

He doesn’t see her smile much, but when he does, it helps his aching heart, just a little. But he’s still him, still ridiculously oblivious, and so it takes him about three weeks to realize. 

MJ’s avoiding him. 

** _mj_ **

Shut up. She’s  _ not _ avoiding Peter, ok. She’s not. 

Just because she happens to be busy, and hasn’t been to  _ their _ Starbucks, and has purposefully ignored calls and messages, and hasn’t let herself into his apartment for a solid month does not mean she is avoiding him and Ned, ok? She just came back from death, for crying out loud! She’s busy!

Ok, so maybe she’s avoiding him, just a little. 

Oh, so you tell her what she’s supposed to do. Healthy communication? Bullshit. 

Ok, it’s a valid point, she’ll concede. But it’s really fucking hard, especially when the person you wanna tell about everything is your feeling is also the cause of your emotions, and not exactly in the best place themselves right now. 

She really isn’t as oblivious as the rest of New York. Peter’s suit was Stark Tech, he literally had an “internship” at SI. She’s seen Peter in the wake of Tony Stark’s death. She’s giving him some space. 

Plus, this just proves her point. The world hurts all the good people in it, and if it had let something like this happen, torn her and Peter and Ned from each other and from their families for five years, then the world was definitely out to hurt good people. 

It’s become even harder, letting people in after the snap. She’s the only one in her family who got snapped, and now her little sister is off at college before she is. Her parents just don’t understand, no matter how hard they might try. And it’s not their fault they don’t get it, but she doesn’t want to try to talk to them. 

(damn, maybe she should become a therapist. she’s sure they’re making  _ so _ much money in the wake of all of this)

She let Peter and Ned in once, yes. She  _ knows _ they’d get it. 

But she’s 16, and her logic is a little off, and frankly it kinda feels good to be away from them, right now. 

Peter and Ned were the good ones. She was the awkward one, who flipped them off and glared, who never talked to anyone and who bristled at anyone who tried to get close. Her walls weren’t worth breaking down the first time, and they’re less so now. 

Everyone’s just better off it she stays away, ok?

(stop looking at her like that)

** _peter_ **

The thing about MJ avoiding him is that it hurts way more than he thought it would. 

It doesn’t hurt exactly like Mr. Stark’s death hurts. That’s more of a dull ache, one that will stay with him for the rest of his life, one that lives in the background of his beating heart. 

(there’s something else there, a phantom face that vanishes the second he thinks about)

No, MJ’s pain is one that pumps in his heart, that drives the needle further in slowly. It’s sharp, and pricking, and bleeds more the longer he thinks about it. 

And it only hurts more as time goes on. 

Yeah, he’d basically had like, the crush of century on her, and she’d been one of his best friends, and yeah, whenever she’d fallen asleep on top of his covers he’d wanted her to stay in his bed for the rest of his life, and he’d hated and loved falling asleep with the smell of her surrounding him, but it’s like, not because of any of that. He wasn’t in love with her. 

(shut up. ok, so maybe he was. just a little)

But it goes beyond that. Sure, he’s got the Avengers, and he’s got May, but he and Ned and MJ were like a  _ team, _ in a way that he wasn’t with anyone else. And he can’t really speak for Ned, but he knows his best friend, knows he’s missing MJ like one would miss a limb. 

Beyond being perhaps the first and only girl he’d ever love, would ever love, she’d been one of his best friends, and more than anything, he misses that. 

** _mj_ **

In the end, it’s Ned who snaps. 

It’s lunchtime, and Peter is making up a math test so it’s just Ned. She’s taken to sitting outside, underneath the bleachers. She tells herself she’s not hiding, but she is. She’s just failing at hiding. 

You can’t hide from yourself. 

Ned finds her, sits down beside her, and eats his lunch, wordlessly. It’s nice, the quiet, at least, but his presence is unnerving. He finishes, offers her his apple. She takes it, picks at it. He does nothing, but sits, looks at her, and offers her a sad smile.  _ He misses you so much, MJ. _

God, she misses them. 

And suddenly tears prick at her eyes. He covers her hand with his. 

And then it’s her who’s breaking, who’s nodding and smiling at him, as much as the smile tears at her heart. He simply asks her to come back. 

There’s so much risk involved. Her walls have just come up, and if they come crumbling down this time, she’s not sure she’s strong enough to put them back up again. She takes a look at Ned’s hand covering hers. Maybe she doesn’t need to be strong enough to put her walls back up again. 

She decides to come back. She misses them too much to not give it a try. 

** _peter_ **

It’s not like a light switch, but the first night she ends up back at his place, there’s a weight taken off his chest. It’s not like the entire weight of the world is eased off of his shoulders, he doesn’t think he’ll be able to ever take it off his shoulders, not after Mr. Stark, but it reminds him that burdens are always lighter when shared. 

He smiles at her, and they come a little easier after that. He laughs when she soundly kicks Ned’s ass at decathlon questions, for the first time in a while. 

They go back to  _ their _ Starbucks, and the baristas are different, but Starbucks hasn’t really changed much in five years, and it’s calming. They order the same drinks and talk about anything and everything, play paper football and go outside to take walks on New York streets. 

The first time she falls asleep in his apartment after the snap, he can’t help but pick her up and carry her to the bed. She wraps her arms around his neck and buries her nose into his neck. He thinks his heart stops, and he wants to freeze this moment, savor it and live it in. It is like all of what happened doesn’t exist, for a second. He buries his own nose into her hair, smells her. God, she still smells the same as she did before the snap, and it is like coming home for the first time again. He sets her down on his bed, brushes her hair away from her face. It’s not brown, like he thought. It’s copper and gold, light brown and even some hints of dirty blonde, threaded throughout. He’s never loved anything in the world like he loves her hair. He brushes his hand against the back of her cheek, soft and as smooth as ever. MJ is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, and he loves her. He loves her so much, and now the ache in his chest from her avoiding him has turned into something else entirely. 

It is like she is ash underneath his fingers, just barely there, enough for him to touch, but never to keep.

** _mj_ **

She falls back in love (did she ever fall out?) with Peter Parker on the night she truly finds out his secret, underneath a sky empty of stars and with blood on her rooftop. 

She’s sitting there, and she doesn’t expect him to reappear, but he does, swinging around and landing with a wince. She reaches out, brushes the gash in his suit with her fingertips, and it comes back red. 

She’s always known what Peter did, the risks involved. She’s known it even more so after the snap, after everything. But seeing it like this, her blood on her hands, is almost too much. 

He blurts out reassurances, but she stops.  _ I know, Peter.  _

His name stops him in his tracks, and she just keeps brushing her hand over the cut in his side.  _ How did you know? _

So she tells Peter the truth. That he is the best person she knows, with the biggest heart. She apologizes for everything, for avoiding him. She doesn’t apologize for being herself, for flipping him off. She’s working on it. 

He’s silent when she finishes, and pulls off his mask. It’s jarring, seeing Peter’s face above Spider-Man’s suit. He’s staring at her, silent, and his eyes are red rimmed. She pauses, then reaches a shaking hand out and cups his cheek, brushing over a small cut with her thumb. 

Peter smiles at her, that crooked smile of his she loves. He grabs her wrist with his own, and turns his face to her palm, pressing a light kiss. And then tears leak out of his eyes, and he squeezes them shut for a second before opening them again, water glistening on eyelashes. 

She realizes she has never stopped loving Peter Parker when his blood is on her hands, and her hands are in his. 

** _peter_ **

Now that MJ knows, it’s like he can tell her everything he’s never been able to tell her. She’s always been one of the easiest people in the world to talk to, always been a great listener. 

But it’s different, this time. He tells her  _ everything.  _

Of course, besides the fact that he’s in love with her. 

Late nights on her rooftop at 3:30 am happen with stunning regularity, and she simply sits and listens. Sometimes she’ll rest her head on his shoulder and he’ll play with her hair, and press kisses to her hairline as she talks. 

They get lost in their own little world, and he just keeps finding her even more lovely every day. She’s really pretty, and he’d be an idiot to let her get away from him. 

But MJ’s always been cautious, always been guarded and hard to read. Her smile shines brighter than the moon, but he can never tell how she feels about him. 

(it’s so unfair, because he can’t keep how he feels hidden from  _ anyone.  _ it’s gotten so bad flash is pushing him to do something about it)

** _mj_ **

This is so dumb, because he should not be looking at her like that, and she should not be feeling these things. She hates this stuff, hates the romance and flower petals and typical high school stuff that comes with these fluttery feelings for your best friend. 

But it’s Paris. It’s fucking Paris, and it’s night, and she and Peter are standing underneath the Eiffel Tower.

God, she wants to hate him for this, but he’s so happy she can’t help but be happy as well. Who knew a trip to Europe with all of their friends could end up like this?

Just for the record, she still hates this kinda stuff. She just, doesn’t hate Peter Parker. 

She really  _ really _ wants to kiss him right now, brown hair disheveled, white button up shirt slightly rumpled. There is yellow light that catches his hair and makes his eyes seem so much brighter, that makes him seem younger. She’s not an idiot. She’s seen the bags that live underneath his eyes, that only seem to be getting larger. She’s probably responsible for a lot of them, staying up late at night certainly doesn’t help, but she doesn’t want Peter to hurt either. He’s too good for this world, and she can’t bear to see him hurt anymore than he already has been. She would take a million bullets for him, would do anything to protect him from any more hurt. She’s selfish, and guarded, jaded and mean, but Peter, Peter is good and kind and sweet, and she doesn’t deserve him, and neither does the world. She will do everything in her power to make sure he never gets hurt like that again. But the lights here make him look so much younger, and when he smiles at her and slips his hand into hers, and pulls her through the streets, she doesn’t say anything. She lets him laugh, and she lets him be young. 

They’ve had too much of their youth stolen already, and she will give him whatever he needs to make him feel like a kid again. 

** _peter_ **

He watches her hair whip in the wind on the boat in Venice, and thumbs the necklace in his pocket. 

(it’s not too romantic, right, giving her a necklace from a muder she loves? he doesn’t seem to obsessive, too weird?)

Ah, fuck it. He loves her. He wants to know everything about her, even beyond what she’s told him already. He wants to wake up with her scent all over his sheets and her face pressed into his neck, He wants breakfast with pancakes and a dog and the New York City nights at 3:30 am in their own place. 

It’s kinda terrible, how much he can see himself living the rest of his life with her. He’s only sixteen. 

But he’s died. They both have. He’s died and he knows how precious their life is, and so to know this is so rare. 

(a voice whispers in his head, just for a second, and it’s so brief he thinks he might have thought of it)

He pulls out the necklace and holds it in his hand. It’s beautiful, Venetian glass, and he wants her to have it. 

(it’s his version of a promise. he knows he won’t love anyone else for the rest of his life)

But a laugh breaks him out of whatever he is thinking about. He knows Brad likes MJ, knows that for once another person finally sees what’s always been there. 

He wants to sneer at him, wants to ask if he knows how she snores a little while she sleeps, how her converses are always dirty, how she hates olives and loves tomatoes. 

He doesn’t, though. Simply clenches his hand around the necklace and stuffs it back in his pocket. 

** _mj_ **

Part of her knows she should let Brad down easy. She’s not dumb. She can see the way he watches her, the way he measures her with intent in his eyes. 

And sure, Brad’s handsome, she guesses, but she spends too much time looking for brown eyes and brown hair and stupidly nice smiles to pay much attention to him and how hot he is. 

She doesn’t really have time to worry about that anyways, not with their summer vacation going all kinds of weird with this Mysterio dude running around, stressing Peter the hell out. She wants to scream at the universe for this injustice. He, out of all people, deserves a break the most. Can’t the universe just leave them alone for a bit?

** _peter_ **

He’d had a whole plan and everything, and he’d wanted to make sure it was perfect. MJ deserved nothing less than absolutely perfect, the very best he could give her. 

(sometimes, in the worst, darkest corners of his mind, he wonders what kind of future he could possibly give her. certainly not one as good as he deserves)

But, yeah, there had been a plan, and really, it’s lowkey on him that he didn’t plan for this to happen because he’s a Parker, and he’s got typical Parker luck screwing him over. So  _ of course _ there’s gotta be this villain, and he’s got to make him go crazy. 

And it only feels fair when he feels in his pocket, pulls out the beautiful Venetian flower only to find it broken. He sighs, but before he can tuck it away, MJ appears, looking like some type of angel. 

She drops her mace (when did she get a  _ mace? _ ) and runs towards him. For a second, he thinks she is going to hug him, but she stops, and then reaches a hand out and brushes it over his battered cheek. 

But her smile when he gives her the necklace is the loveliest thing he has ever seen, and the way she just blushes captivates him. But she pockets the necklace, and smiles at him.  _ I like it a little better broken. _

** _mj_ **

It is a truth universally acknowledged that as soon as there is a hero, a villain appears to counteract them. It is also known that most of these villains have powers or special skills of their own. Not many are normal. 

But serial killers still exist, and one has Peter in a warehouse. 

** _peter_ **

_ MJ! What are you doing here? _

** _mj_ **

_ Thought I’d go for a walk. Weather’s nice. What about you, Spider-Man? Didn’t know you had a thing for bondage.  _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ, you can’t be here. This guy is terrible. Like, horrible. _

** _mj_ **

_ You think I don’t know that, Parker?  _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ— _

** _mj_ **

_ Think about who’s got to be the one to receive that call. Think about me and May and Ned. I have to watch you all the time, risking your stupid ass to catch these idiots.  _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ, you need to get out of here, right now. Please. _

** _mj_ **

_ There. Get up. Come on, quick.  _

** _peter_ **

_ Did you hear that? _

** _mj_ **

_ Unfortunately. _

** _peter_ **

_ Quick, back there.  _

** _mj_ **

_ Peter, do not leave me here by myself. _

** _peter _ **

_ MJ, I need you to stay here.  _

** _mj_ **

_ Peter, if you leave me here by myself, so help me god,  _ I _ will kill you. _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ,  _ please. _ I can’t lose you too. Please. Please, just stay here. _

** _mj_ **

_ No, wait! _

_ …..peter? _

_ ……. _

_ ……. _

_ …….. _

** _peter_ **

_ Holy shit, what the hell! _

** _mj_ **

_ Peter, are you ok? _

** _peter_ **

_ Am I ok? You just whacked him over the head with a pipe! _

** _mj_ **

_ He was kicking your ass, Parker.  _

** _peter_ **

_ I thought I told you to stay put. _

** _mj_ **

_ Peter, there’s no way I was gonna sit there and let him hurt you. _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ, you could’ve gotten hurt. Why didn’t you listen? _

** _mj_ **

_ You’re getting a taste of your own medicine, Parker.  _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ, please. I can’t see you get hurt. _

** _mj_ **

_ So protect me, and I’ll protect you. Deal? _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ…. _

** _mj_ **

_ I’m not gonna stop helping you, Peter.  _

** _peter_ **

_ Fine. Deal.  _

** _mj_ **

_ Knew you had to see sense soon or later. _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ? _

** _mj_ **

_ Yeah? _

** _peter _ **

_ Thank you. _

_ What—what are you doing? _

** _mj_ **

_ What does it look like I’m doing, dumbass? Just shut up and accept the hug. _

** _peter_ **

_ Oh. This is nice.  _

** _mj_ **

_ I’d hope so, considering I just saved you. Parker? _

** _peter_ **

_ Yeah? _

** _mj_ **

_ Can I tell Ned about your little bondage kink? _

** _peter_ **

_ OhmygodMJ! _

** _mj_ **

It’s a while before things settle down again, which is fair. After all, Peter was kidnapped. She had Ned hack into his suit and find him, and then she tracked him down, snuck in, and whacked a serial killer on the back of his head with a pipe. 

May had had an absolute field day about Peter, and if the thought of what could happen to just him drove her up the wall, she didn’t want to think about what would happen if May ever found out she was there as well. 

(it’s not really a well kept secret that peter’s aunt is one of the best things around him and she’d like to keep may from freaking out about her since her nephew does such a poor job of that himself)

And Ned seems to find the whole thing entirely cool, except for when he narrows his eyes at them when they sit next to each other at lunch. She gives him a weird look, asks what’s going on, but all he does is shake his head and wave it off. 

But, things do cool down, eventually. She decides not to think about their future. Now that she’s an FOS, as dubbed by Ned, she knows her life will forever be like this. She tries not to think about it too much. 

** _peter_ **

The problem about life, is that it goes on. Time does really have healing properties, and soon, this summer, whenever he sees graffiti of Mr. Stark, of Iron Man, instead of hurting, it reminds him of all the memories they made. 

Of course, it still hurts. It’ll  _ never _ stop hurting. But he’s learned how to survive the pain, just a little bit. To muscle through. 

(sometimes he wakes up sweaty, dreaming of stars he can’t have possibly seen, worlds that don’t exist. he rolls over and shoves his head underneath the pillow)

And so thinking about this inevitably leads him to think about the future, which makes his head hurt, frankly. He’s sixteen (almost seventeen) and the future terrifies him beyond all logical comprehension, and to be honest, he’d really rather not talk about it. 

He can tell MJ feels the same, which is why after he, Ned, and her have all gotten lectures from their respective guardians about their future and college applications, all of which terrify the absolute  _ shit _ out of them, they decide to do something absolutely sickeningly stereotypical for teenagers. 

So they steal a pack of beer from MJ’s parents, and then hide in his room when May’s out on a night shift and get drunk. 

** _mj_ **

She’d swore she’d never do something this cliche, but like….it has  _ benefits. _

For once, her mind isn’t going into overdrive, isn’t worrying about anything. She’s simply enjoying the here and the now, finding the way Peter’s eyes turn glassy, which are usually so sharp and alert, hilarious. She’s really finding funny how Ned seems to get sleepy when drunk, and passes out after his second beer. 

She and Peter on on their third, and they’re both looking out at the city sky. It’s beautiful, and she sets down her drink and flops on her back, staring at Peter’s ceiling. 

** _peter_ **

He’s sure the both of them are officially drunk, probably more drunk than they’ve ever been, but he lies down next to her anyways, stares at his ceiling. 

It’s completely silent, and then she starts snuggling closer to him, pressing their arms together. She leans her head on his shoulder, and they lie there, pretending they can see the stars through the ceiling. 

So here’s the thing. Drunk him has even less of a filter and impulse control than sober him. So he turns his head to laugh at her jokes, and finds himself looking her in the eyes, which are big and brown and right there. 

It goes up there with the best (and worst) decisions he’s ever made, but he closes his eyes, presses his forehead against hers. 

He’s not sure who moves first, perhaps they both move at the exact same time and meet in the middle, but his lips catch hers, soft and sweet, and he’s  _ kissing _ MJ on the floor of his bedroom. 

** _mj_ **

Kissing Peter is a lot like what she thinks it feels like when a match is struck. There’s a hot flame of desire, for a second, when she wants to kiss him harder, and deeper, but then the flame of heat quiets down, settling happily into her gut. And then it is like slow, melting warmth spreading through her body, as if heated honey was flowing through her veins. It messes up her brain and makes her thinking unclear, and she feels as though she is underwater and drowning happily. Kissing Peter is not fireworks, not quite yet, but he tastes like beer and sunshine, and what she thinks freedom would taste like. He tastes like something else, and she wants to keep kissing him until she figures out exactly what it is. 

** _peter_ **

Kissing MJ is like the slow movement of volcanic lava, he thinks. There’s the potential to destroy there, the potential to wreak havoc and rip everything apart, but there’s also the building of something new entirely, something their own, and only their own. Her hair brushes his cheek and it’s soft, almost as soft as her lips. And then she sighs, pressing herself into him, and he can feel just the faintest hint of a smile on her lips. He feels like he is settling down in front of the fireplace with hot chocolate and a blanket, safe, exhausted, utterly comfortable. At home. He wants to keep kissing her until they fall asleep. 

** _mj_ **

They don’t talk about it. Which is fair, because they were both ridiculously drunk, and she doesn’t even think that Peter remembers what had happened. It took her three days to remember, before she had a clearer picture in her mind over just passing out on his floor, the three of them waking up the next morning with pounding headaches and completely disheveled clothing. 

She doesn’t want to talk about it, because she was the dumbest person alive and kissed her best friend. What she wants to do is bury herself in her blankets and die there. 

So instead she sort of just...stays quiet. Recovers from her headache, goes for a walk in Central Park and draws even more people in crisis. She tries not to think about how her current mental state fits all of the criteria she has for the people she chooses to draw. 

It’s odd, though, because she hadn’t exactly expected this from Peter. She’s glad, though. Being confronted with her feelings is the last thing she wants. 

(there’s, of course, that part of her from sophomore year of high school, the part from before friends, from after the snap, that visits her, sometimes, when she’s having a particularly bad day and her meds aren’t keep everything at bay, when she asks herself why anyone like peter would want anyone like her, but she always manages to stuff that part of her down. it’s getting harder, lately, though. she has to figure out a way to make it starve)

When they meet at Starbucks again a week after, all Ned’s doing, they act as normal as possible. She thinks she’s happy. She can’t afford to have any other feelings about this. 

** _peter_ **

This is what he wanted, so why is he moping so hard about it?

It’s not like he went up to MJ and told her how he felt. It’s not like he tried to make any more moves in the wake of what happened.

But it’s also not like he’s been able to get the memory out of his mind. He knows she doesn’t remember it, but on the off chance that she does, he sometimes finds himself wondering just what exactly she remembers; the soft, sleepy sigh she’d let out after he pulled away? The way she had tucked herself into his side fully after, unperturbed by their kissing. The way she had slipped her hands around his waist and underneath his shirt, and he had to restrain himself from yelping out loud, because her hands were cold. 

He might be a little dumb, a lot of a dumbass, but he’s not stupid. He knows MJ doesn’t think herself good enough for him, and he finds this so incredibly frustrating.

The thing about him is that he’s a human being, and he doesn’t understand why everyone refuses to see him as such. Mr. Stark, MJ, Ned, May, they all think he’s better than he is because he’s a decent person. And yes, human decency gets a little harder to do each day, but he doesn’t think there’s anything extraordinary about anything he does.

He’s a fuck up and he makes a lot of mistakes and he’s a human being. He doesn’t deserve a better world than the rest of them. He just wants to make the world he has better. 

He’s not a particularly extraordinary person, and so it frustrates him to no end that MJ can’t see she’s just as good as he is. Its frustrates him, because when he has dinner with her and Ned and May in his apartment, and everyone is laughing, he knows it is not he who is extraordinary, but what he  _ has _ that is the special thing.

** _mj_ **

She tells herself it’s not for any special reason other than the fact that it’s his 17th birthday. So when she, Ned, and May plan the party, it’s a very quiet affair. They all make the decision to not invite any of the Avengers or affiliated people aside from Happy. They may be close to Peter, but he’s still raw. 

He still needs time to heal. 

Sometimes she wants to scream and hurt the universe, thinking about all they’ve been through, thinking about all that the universe has stolen away form every single fucking person on Earth. Everyone deserves to live a life unencumbered by struggle, and 7 billion people have had that stolen away from them. 

It’s hard to be mad at everything when they see his face, though. When she pulls him in for a hug and tells herself that he’s ok. His smile is the best invention in the galaxy, and it reminds her that things can always be good. 

** _peter_ **

He’s kind of given up on pretending he isn’t completely head over heels for MJ to anyone. They all know, so why bother hiding it? 

Still, it’s incredibly difficult, when they’re sitting together drinking coffee, to resist tucking her hair behind her ears, to cover her hand with his, to press kisses to the crest of her cheek. He wants her, in the gentle way one wishes for a summer rain. He wants all of her curves and elbows and sharp smiles, soft eye rolls and awkward jokes. He wants her here, on his birthday, smiling. 

When she hugs him, he wraps his arms around her as tightly as he can and buries his face into her neck, cushioned by her hair. They’ve hugged infrequently after the incident in the warehouse, but it’s always been good for him. 

He tells himself the incident is long over, that he no longer needs to count the beats of her heart to reassure himself, but he still does. Just to calm the beats of his own. 

(sometimes he hears the beat of another heart, in tandem. he wonders how many hearts are beating at the same time)

** _mj_ **

So it turns out that half of the universe dying doesn’t stave off college applications, and part of her desperately wishes it does, because this process is just, entirely too stressful for her to deal with. 

And she’s saying this  _ after _ coming back from death. 

But anyways, her applications for Harvard have to be perfect. If only because there's no way Ned and Peter aren’t going to get into MIT, and she’d really like to go to college near the only true friends she really has. It’s an incredibly stressful process and she just wants to curl up and die and pretend it doesn’t exist sometimes.

So this is her justification as to why she doesn’t see Peter as often. She literally can’t, trapped in her room writing supplementals and trying to figure out her financial aid situation. 

Why does she want to go to college again?   
  


Of course, that doesn’t mean their nightly talks stop, just that she stops seeing him during the day. 

After about a week of this, though, he brings it up, and she explains. She can tell by the strained way he laughs that he’s feeling the same way, ever since school started. They’re both terrified of the future. She wants to be a kid, just for a little longer, just for one more minute. She literally lost five years of her life, she should get to be young for a little longer. 

But if there’s one thing she’s learned after all of this, it is that time waits for no one, and so she has no choice.

** _peter_ **

It’s dumb, considering that he wants to freeze time and just live in it, but they haven’t gotten their letters back yet. He doesn’t get his back until March 14th, and he’s not sure when MJ gets hers, but he knows she hasn’t gotten it yet, because she would have told him. 

They’re in the senior year of high school, and he’s determined to make the most of it. Honestly, he’s cut back on the superheroing a bit. The cops exist for a reason, so he really doesn’t show up for more than a couple minutes to web up the perp and then leave, and patrol is really cursory. Regular days, contrary to his expectations, frankly don’t have that much crime. 

He’s seventeen. He deserves to be spending his time enjoying his senior year of high school and hanging out with his best friends. Not stressing out. 

(he won’t tell you this, but one of those factors is that he’d very much like to ask his best friend to prom. of course, he’d love to go to prom with ned. ned would actually be a great bro date, but he’s going with betty as  _ friends, _ apparently. he calls bullshit. yes, he’s aware of the irony. shut up)

He spends way too much time thinking about how he’d like to ask her. It’s only early March, so it’s not like, ridiculously early to ask, or anything. Just, early. He wants to ask before acceptance letters come out, before he knows whether or not they’ll be torn apart from each other for four years. And yes, Skype and Facetime and calls exist, but he won’t have nightly chats, and part of that makes him distresses him. He wants to see her everyday. 

God, he just needs to figure out how to ask his best friend to prom. 

** _mj_ **

To be fair, she hadn’t had any expectations for it, or anything. Prom is a ridiculous high school construct, and when there were places in this country that were  _ still _ holding segregated dances in 2012, she’s not exactly inclined to support it. 

But, to be fair, prom’s gotten a lot better in the past few years. Even if she didn’t have a date, she could justifiably go to prom with Peter and Ned and Betty. Nobody would care, especially not here in New York. 

What she does underestimate is how much of a sickening romantic she is, underneath her walls. Ok, sue her. So prom itself is not the worst thing in the world. Just the expectations surrounding it. But some small part of her has to admit she likes the idea of being asked to go to prom, with someone. She ignores the specific someone she’d like to go with. 

(her favorite movie is  _ 10 Things I Hate About You, _ ok? give her a break. 90’s rom coms are where it’s at and you know she’s right)

Therefore, it’s a little hard to deny the flutter in her stomach that appears when he asks her, quietly, on her rooftop. He asks her when they’re alone, when it’s just to two of them and New York City and space, when the only sounds come from them, when the only thing she can hear, really, is the beat of her own heart. 

He asks her at a time when they feel like the world belongs to them, when they are young and reckless and  _ each other’s, _ and she loves him all the more for that. 

He asks her looking into her eyes, when she’s running her hand through his hair, when her hair falls down and tickles his nose. He asks her when his head is in her lap and his eyes meet hers. 

_ MJ, do you want to go to prom with me?  _

What is she supposed to say besides yes, to this boy who knows her inside out, to this boy who seems to know her better than she knows herself at times? She wouldn’t ever want to say anything other than yes, and she notes he never adds  _ as friends,  _ even though it’s likely implied. She runs a hand through his hair, and smiles down at him. 

_ Yes. _

** _peter_ **

He gets his letter on March 14th, and as he opens it, he can  _ feel _ his heart pounding through his chest. 

It’s an acceptance letter, and a weight is lifted off of his chest as he looks at it. He gets a call from Ned two minutes later, and soon they’re both shrieking, freaking out, and making plans to meet up at his place. As soon as he hangs up, he gets a text from MJ to their group chat, and she says she’s coming over to his place as well, and she’s bringing something. 

The guilt intensifies. MJ hadn’t gotten her letter yet, and she’s coming to his place for his college celebration? 

He’s been so scared of the future because of what it means for them. That’s been a big part of it. He was never worried about like that with Ned. He knew he and Ned were going to the same college. Plus, he loved Ned, but he wasn’t  _ in love _ with Ned. 

So he sets his phone down and waits for his best friends to arrive. 

** _mj_ **

When she gets to Peter’s, she takes in a deep breath, smooths down her jacket. 

He and Ned are already on the floor of his bedroom, and she sits down without saying a word and hands him a letter, sealed. He takes it, flips the boring white envelope over.  _ Harvard University _ is printed in neat red script in the corner, and her name is in the center. 

She had actually gotten this letter a week ago, but she hadn’t opened it. It wasn’t like her to shy away from confronting the truth, but a lot of things had changed in the wake of the snap, and this wasn’t about the truth so much as it was about the possibility of leaving her friends, the only people in the world who know her. 

He looks up at her, and she nods, and he rips open the letter.

** _peter_ **

He doesn’t get past the acceptance part of the acceptance letter before he’s launching himself across the room and thrusting it into her hands. She scans it quickly, and then chokes out a laugh, and throws her arms around him. 

He hugs her back before she lets go and hugs Ned, and this is it, the moment where he knows these two people will never not be in his life, will always be the two people he can count on the most. 

** _mj_ **

It’s kind of sickening, though, because as she thinks about it, she can’t be scared of the future anymore. She’s going to Harvard and Peter and Ned are going to MIT, and they’re only a five minute drive away from each other. 

She can’t think about being torn apart from Peter because of college anymore. It’s not like being separated from him hasn’t haunted her, but it has been a gateway thought. Ever since she figured out what he does, who he is, the thought has always been there, in the back of her mind. And the worrying about college was terrible for her, the idea of not seeing him every day. 

But it made her realize that something much much worse than college could take him away from her. And it is that kind of thought that steals away the rest of the little sleep she gets, leaving her perpetually exhausted and snappish with people. 

She thinks she is like Orpheus, and Peter Eurydice. She is forever destined to be chasing after him, and he would always remain just out of her reach, just beyond her fingertips. 

Such was loving someone whose heart was too big for the both of you.

She worries there’ll be a day when he won’t come home to her anymore, a day when she’ll get a call from May and when she’ll break. That is the curse of loving a hero, because you don’t just sign up for them, but you sign up for all of the heartbreak they will bring into your life. And it is the hardest thing you will ever have to do, because while they put themselves in danger, while they put themselves on the front line of anything bad happening, you are the one left with the aftermath. You are the one picking up the pieces, 

Loving Peter is like loving a hurricane, and it is her who will be left to deal with the devastation after, trying to put the pieces of herself and everyone she loves back together. 

Her hand shakes when she thinks about this, staring at her wall, it drives her nearly insane, and when she collapses in front of Peter one night because of pure sleep deprivation and worry, he freaks out. 

** _peter_ **

He has to catch her and hold her against him one night, when he arrives just a little bit early to one of their 3:30 am talks. 

(they’ve become less talks now and more so just stretches of time where they sit together, enjoying the quiet and each other) 

When MJ stumbles up to the roof, he can immediately tell something is wrong, and he reaches out for her, calls her name. She looks up at him, hair wild and eyes exhausted, and before he can even say anything, she collapses. 

_ MJ! _

He manages to haul her against him, and he’s so scared he can hear his heartbeat pounding in his ears, but thankfully she opens her eyes a minute later, bleary. He doesn’t even bother hearing what she has to say, just presses his forehead to hers in relief. His heart is still pounding and he’s still worried beyond belief, bile rising up in the back of his throat at the idea that something bad had happened to her but right now she’s breathing, awake, and here in his arms, and there is no safer place for her to be. He will never let her go. 

_ MJ, what’s wrong? What’s happening? _

** _mj_ **

_ I haven’t been sleeping, Peter. At all. I’ll explain. Just...give me a moment for my head to stop spinning. You can let go of me. _

** _peter_ **

_ I’m not letting go of you until you tell me what’s wrong and why you haven’t been sleeping. MJ, why would you keep something like this from me? _

** _mj_ **

_ I’m not someone you have to take care of, Peter. I’m perfectly capable of doing that myself. Look, I am sorry for not talking to you earlier. I should have. It’s been really difficult, after we got out letters. I don’t know how to say this. Peter, I’ve been so worried about you lately that I haven’t been sleeping. Ever since the snap, ever since Thanos, I know what the world is like. I saw it in New York, I saw it in Europe. And you choose to go out there, to fight against that. I would never ask you to stop, I know you can’t and I know you need to help people. It’s me. I’m the one who has to figure out how to deal with who you are and what you do. I’ve got to make my peace with your sacrifice. Who are you is someone who cares, Peter. I’m not as selfless as you. I just want you safe.  _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ, nothing in the world means more to me than you. Nothing means more to me than Ned and May and what we have. I guess when I made the decision to become a hero, I didn’t think further than what I could do. I have all of these powers, and seeing so much pain out there, I just wanted to do something. If not for me, for May. For Ben. But I’ve realized, ever since Tony, more and more than it’s not just my life I put on the line. I’m asking you and Ned and May to sacrifice so much. MJ, you can’t lose sleep because of me. I can’t bear it. You don’t deserve to be making these same sacrifices. God, MJ. I need you to understand something. I will never put anything above you guys. You are the most important person in the world to me. You’re my best friend. You’re my favorite person.  _

** _mj_ **

_ Peter, I can’t ask you to choose. You don’t have to choose. I’m the one who has to learn to live with this. It comes with the territory. It comes with being your friend. It comes from knowing someone as you as you who can’t  _ help _ but do something. _

** _peter_ **

_ You’re not asking me to choose. I am choosing. Don’t lose sleep over me, anymore. I will always choose you guys. I will always choose you. _

** _mj_ **

_ No, Peter, you won’t. And I don’t want you to.  _

** _peter_ **

_ So what can I do? To help you sleep? To give you some peace? _

** _mj_ **

_ Just sit here, with me, Peter. I’ll find peace on my own. I’m stronger than I look. _

** _peter_ **

_ You’re the strongest person I know, MJ.  _

** _mj_ **

She gets so strong she sometimes forgets the risk involved with Peter’s hobby. It’s not easy to forget, which isn’t exactly the best word for it. It’s more along the lines that she’s gotten better at pushing it aside, putting it into the back of her mind. Forgetting about how he throws himself in front of danger isn’t something she’s ever likely to do. 

Of course, there are times when it is highlighted more, like when he swings onto their rooftop one night and lands with a wince. He’s trying to hide it, she can tell, but she doesn’t even wait for a response, simply grabs his hand and drags him down to her room. She grabs her first aid kit and pulls the mask off his face, wincing at the long cut that slices across his cheek. 

It’s then when she notices the long slash of suit on his shoulder. Poking at it, he winces, and explains that a wayward knife had caught him the wrong way. 

She simply shakes her head, tells him to take off the suit and put on a pair of pants, and steps out of the room to grab a large bandage from the medicine cabinet in the bathroom. 

When she returns, she shuts the door behind her and turns to look at Peter, and freezes in her place. 

God, the sleep deprivation must really be getting to her, because somehow in all of her bossing around, she seems to have forgotten that her best friend has  _ abs. _ And she might pretend that she is above all of that stuff, not concerned with someone’s physical appearance, but in this case it’s terrible because it’s only something really fucking attractive about a guy who’s already really fucking great. 

Is she biting her lip? She’s not sure if she’s biting her lip but she really doesn’t want to look away, but desperately needs to look away at the same time. Part of her just wants to trace her hands and cuddle next to him, have his fascinatingly strong arms wrap around her, and pull her close. 

It’s the drip of blood down his chest that shocks her bad into action, and she drags her eyes back up to Peter’s. He’s looking at her with twin bright pink blushes on his cheeks, and she’s sure she looks just as flushed, but she clears her throat and pretends nothing happened. 

She tells him to sit down and douses a cotton ball with rubbing alcohol before stepping between his legs. And god, the way he’s looking at her right now, they need to define a new word for that, because he has so much emotion in those eyes of his, so much devotion and love and admiration in them, that she’s not sure how to handle it.

This was a fucking mistake, deciding to stand here with her shirtless best friend, hands on his cheeks while his eyes look at her like that, like he can never get enough of looking at her. She knows she should step back, pull away before they cross a line they can’t uncross, but her body loves being here. Loves being seen by him. She feels like she belongs here.

** _peter_ **

Fuck, he’s dreaming, right? This has to be a dream, because there’s no way MJ is here right now, standing over him, lip pink from where she had been chewing on it earlier, lean fingers tracing over the cut on his cheek almost reverently. 

He’s literally a 100% sure he’s had this dream before, so he can’t be blamed for what happens next because he did it in the dream and he’s currently having trouble differentiating between reality and dreams. 

She needs to be slightly closer, and before she can take a step closer, he wraps his arms around her waist and tugs her closer. Her lips part in a silent gasp, but she wrestles back control and begins dabbing the cotton ball over the cut, tongue peeking out as she focuses. It’s painful, the rubbing alcohol, and he decides to keep his arms around her waist to distract him from the stinging pain. 

This particular angle forces him to look up at her face (although, is he ever forced to look at mj’s face? the answer is no), and he drinks it in. Her eyes, so warm, rove over the cut, and her thumb slips out and wipes some blood off of his cheek. He wants to catch her bottom lip in between his own and kiss her, for hours, for the rest of his life. He remembers the time they kissed while drunk vividly, and he’s sure he could kiss MJ for the rest of his life and it still wouldn’t be enough. 

She finishes dabbing at the cut on his cheek, applying a piece of butterfly tape to it, and he smiles at her, even though it hurts. 

She then gets to work on his shoulder, and he tries to not wince too hard, but it’s a long cut, not deep, thankfully, but she has to put the alcohol so it doesn’t get infected, and that’s not fun. 

She’s murmuring words of assurance, and she works quickly, hands moving over the cut and cleaning it away, bandaging it quickly so as to minimize his pain. 

When she’s done, she runs a hand through his hair, and he sighs, closing his eyes and enjoying the feel of her touch. He lets his head drift forward, resting on her sternum, and she gently chides him as her hands move down from his shoulders to his ribs, asking him to be careful. He feels like he could lie here forever, head resting on her chest, listening to the steady thump of her heart.

Her fingernails scrape against his ribs when his own fingers tighten on her waist, pulling her impossibly closer, and one hand drifts up from there to cup the back of her neck, looking her in the eyes. 

She looks down at him, adoration and compassion and peace swimming in those eyes, and he smiles, promising to listen to her. Her lips curl into a smile, and his hand moves from the back of her neck, thumb brushing against her bottom lip for a split second. The base of his hand presses against her neck, and he feels the hummingbird beat of her pulse for a nanosecond before she gets her bearings again and pulls away. 

His arms already miss holding her. 

** _mj_ **

Her fear starts to ebb away. It’s ironic, considering he had stumbled into her, bleeding, but helping him seemed to help her as well. She doesn’t think she’ll ever truly be able to make her peace with it, but after that night on her rooftop, she starts sleeping again. She had fallen asleep with Peter’s arms around her, safe. It is the first and only time she thinks she will ever fall asleep in Peter’s arms, and ever since then there has been a sense of security that surrounds her. 

Like a lot of things, the feeling will always be there, but he helps make it go away, for a little bit. 

She finds her prom dress, a bright red that, according to Betty, makes her skin look  _ luminous. _ And she tries it on and tries to not love it completely, to not go giddy with the idea of going to prom with her best friend, the boy she’s been in love with for literal  _ years, _ the person she wants to share everything with, but like, see aforementioned facts. Of course she is. 

** _peter_ **

Ok, so he’s a total and complete idiot. 

Because as much as it feels like he’s loved MJ since the beginning of time, he hasn’t. He really hasn’t loved her since the beginning of time, but when she smiles at him like that, what does time matter anyways. 

She is the most beautiful thing he has ever seen, and he wants nothing more than to pull her closer, to dance with her, to kiss her until his lips are covered in the same lipstick she wears, as red as her dress and as red as his tie. He wants nothing more than her, just her. And god, her hair, her beautiful hair. He thinks it might be the death of him, and he wants to touch it.

He’s fucking nervous, but she gives him a smile, the same one that used to send sparks through him. It still sends sparks through him, but it also spreads through his body, comforting him. 

He tells her he looks beautiful and pretends he doesn’t adore the blush that spreads over her cheeks. He asks her to dance, and the blush only spreads, making him want to trace its path down her cheek. 

But she accepts, and he holds her close to him, and she’s not wearing heels, so they’re just about the same height. But it’s all too much, to dance with her eyes on him, so he tucks his head into her hair, clutches her just ever so tightly at her waist, and closes his eyes. 

He is at peace, and he holds onto it, this bright, shining moment. It may never reappear. 

** _mj_ **

For the first time in all her nights, sitting up here, she sits on the edge, the long skirt of her dress billowing in the wind. 

Her hair whips against her face, but she likes it. Ditching prom night, (well, not really ditching, they had stayed there for about 4 hours) was a good decision, and it’s an even better decision when Peter drops to the ground beside her, holding two McDonald’s bags in his hands. 

They sit like that, watching the Empire State Building, discussing Flash’s ridiculous suit and stealing French fries from each other, because they always taste better when stolen, and that’s just a fact. 

This night is theirs, and while she loves it, she knows it’s going to end soon, and she knows that this world is only theirs for tonight. But she turns off her brain and laces her fingers through Peter’s. 

** _peter_ **

MJ falls asleep then, and he holds her. She’s wearing the necklace he got her. The sound of her breathing is soothing, and god, he’s so gone.

He needs to figure this out. He can’t continue like this. He’d rather burn alive than hurt MJ, but he loves her too much to hide this from her. The only thing he’s worried about is that she will see herself as undeserving of him. And that’s not true. 

He can’t think of a better person in the world to hold his heart. 

** _mj_ **

College really doesn’t change much in their routine. They don’t see each other as much as they’d like, but that’s more of a problem with classes and how busy the both of them are over choice. 

3:30 am talks are still easy, though. Even easier since he doesn’t Spider-Man here in Cambridge, unless it’s required, but it’s still a city, and so he can get to her room easily. 

There are a couple things college does change, though. 

Alright. She won’t ever admit this to his face (lies, she already has), but, Peter’s what one might call conventionally attractive. 

Ok, he’s fucking hot, and he’s only hotter because he’s not self centered or even truly aware of how how he is. 

She’s been aware of this fact, painfully aware of this fact, for like,  _ years, _ and she’s never cared about the fact that other people didn’t. At Midtown, no one seemed to really think about how attractive Peter was, even though it was glaringly obvious to her, but that was fair. Half of them died. Dating fell way down the list of priorities for about half of the population. Even people who were dating weren’t as into it as before. 

But, it’s been a couple years since everyone was snapped back. People have started to adjust. She doesn’t think they ever truly will, not quite, but they’ve learned to adapt. To live with this slightly off new reality. 

And MIT is different than Midtown. People here, girls and boys alike, definitely notice how attractive Peter is. It’s become somewhat normal for her to show up on campus and see Peter chatting to more than one person, completely enchanted by him. 

Neither of them really date, too devoted to their movie nights with Ned and each other, but that definitely doesn’t stop girls and boys from asking Peter out. 

Truth be told, she’s jealous. Not because of the people talking to Peter. He’s a nice guy, and he’s not dating anyone. They’re  _ just friends. _ She can’t expect people to want to stay away from him. And she knows Peter might not think he’s leading them on, but being a decent guy, in this economy? It’s leading them on. 

No, she’s jealous of these people because they have ten times the courage to confront their feelings. Peter always lets someone down easy, never hurts their feelings. But they still have the courage to tell him how they feel, to his face. 

She’s been trying to work up that same courage for  _ years. _ And seeing all these people jump on Peter, she knows she has to say something soon, if she ever wants to be with him. She could never love anyone else, not even half as much as she loves Peter. 

If she doesn’t want to live the rest of her life with a broken heart, she has to figure out a way to tell him. She has to find some kind of courage. 

** _peter_ **

He decides to tell her on a bright Saturday morning, when they’re walking in the Boston Commons. She looks ridiculously beautiful, and he knows he has to tell her. More than anything in the world, more than the love of his life and the person he wants to spend the rest of eternity with, she is his best friend. She is his best friend, and she will always be there for him. 

So of course, it’s the perfect time for the screaming to start. 

** _mj_ **

It’s too nice of a day, and so when the screaming starts, she wants to say she’s surprised, but she’s not. She’s from New York. She’s really, really not.

She can tell by the look on Peter’s face that he has to go. Of course he has to go. 

_ Go, Peter. _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ… _

** _mj_ **

_ I’ll be fine. Please, go. _

** _peter_ **

He pulls her close for a second, presses his forehead against hers and touches her cheek with his fingertips. 

_ Stay safe, please. _

And then he’s running, his heart bleeding out in his chest.

** _mj_ **

And she’s standing there, desperately trying to pretend tears aren’t shining wet on her cheeks. 

** _peter_ **

Thank god he’s got his web shooters, because he can make it back to his dorm and into his suit quickly enough, and soon he’s webbing up and headed to Fenway Park, where scores of people are screaming, and streaming out of the place. 

The mask’s eyes scan for anything out of the ordinary, and soon zero in on a man standing in the center of the chaos, watching everything with a creepily calm look on his face. 

But, as he’s watching, the man’s entire image seems to ripple, almost like a mirage, an image in water, and his physical appearance changes, shifting to look exactly like the woman rushing past him. 

Oh,  _ fuck. _ This was not going to be fun. He orders Karen to keep an eye on the man as he webs up and swings a little closer, but the eerily calm way the man (woman? he’ll just call him chameleon) smiles at him sends shivers down his spine. 

Before he can even blink, Chameleon’s appearance changes again, taking on the face of another person. There is still a gigantic crowd of people rushing around, and he swings closer, shooting a web at the Chameleon. He swiftly dodges it, changing once more as he does, into a woman again, and it’s confusing, and he has to blink his eyes, which are getting tired even from his advanced senses watching closely. 

The Chameleon then darts to the side, and he swings over, flipping and landing on the rooftop before shooting webs in quick succession to block the exists, bottlenecking the park. This forces all the civilians to get out through one exit, but this guy hasn’t hurt anybody yet. 

_ What do you want? _ he vaguely remembers calling, but he’s not even justified with a response. The face that Chameleon is wearing raises an eyebrow, and then changes once more, smirking at him. 

_ I’ve been watching you, Spider-Man. I know who you are. Who you love. Let’s see if you can keep up.  _

Then, he darts forward, blending into the crowd.

There is a shout trapped in his throat, but there are so many people it’s too difficult for Karen to focus on one person at a time. 

And the Chameleon is gone. 

** _mj_ **

She’s terrified, and so she goes to the one place where she can feel even remotely ok. 

Peter’s dorm.

She ends up stumbling in to find the room empty, and part of her is upset, because Ned understands, and he’d be a comfort, but part of her is so so relieved. She’s not sure she’d be able to handle another person. 

She pulls out her laptop from her bag and opens it, navigating to the site and watching the news feed vigilantly. 

There’s just feed of people screaming, and then feed of Peter shooting his webs and swinging around the park. 

She lies down in his bed and tries not to think too much about how the sheets smell like him. 

** _peter_ **

He’s still scanning the crowd when a flash of brown hair captures his attention, and his heart leaps into his throat. 

_ MJ! _

She screams, nearly trampled by everyone around her, and he immediately webs further down, shooting her with a web and pulling her to him. She clutches him, eyes wild and shaking, and looks back down. 

He brushes back a lock of her hair, and she nearly throws up. 

_ Don’t do that again. _

He’s about to agree when something niggles at the back of his brain. Why would MJ tell him not to do that again? He hasn’t taken her swinging around the city in a long time. He knows she 

hates it. He doesn’t need to tell her. 

Unless…

Everything clicks into place at the exact same time, and a horrific, sickening grin spreads over MJ’s (not mj, the chameleon, he reminds himself) face just as he launches himself away from the man. 

_ Mr. Parker.  _ The Chameleon taps the side of MJ’s face, and he wants to scream at him to stop touching her, to go away.  _ What an honor, to finally meet the famous Spider-Man. _

He wants to say something, but all that comes out is this weird choking sound. He’s staring at the face of the girl he loves, completely unable to do anything. 

_ Surprised I figured out who you are?  _ The Chameleon then shifts, morphing into May, and then Ned.  _ I know everything about you, Parker. And I also know the best way to defeat you.  _ His face shifts back into MJ’s. 

_ Can you hurt her? _ Even without saying anything, he knows it’s true. He can’t hurt her. Not even a villain who’s wearing her face. 

But he’s got to do something. 

He shoots two webs, one on either side of The Chameleon, and bounces off of the wall, shooting a web while in midair and pulling The Chameleon back.

The webs catch him, but just enough so that he doesn’t break every bone in his body. 

He webs down and punches the Chameleon in the face, easily knocking him out, and MJ’s face melts away (thank god) to reveal that of a man. His lip curls in disgust, but before he can web up the man further, preventing him from getting away, a sharp, high, scream grabs his attention. 

He glances over to see a little girl getting pushed around, almost completely swallowed by the tide. Quickly, he swings down and grabs her wrist, picking her up as he moves back up. 

He sets them down on the pavement where a woman rushes up and grabs her, hugging her. 

Satisfied, he turns back to see where the Chameleon is, but the man’s gone, vanished into thin air. 

He swears, and turns back, watching as the last of the crowd rushes out of the park and calms down.

** _mj_ **

He stumbles into his dorm, eyes red rimmed, and she leaps up instantly, lunging at him. 

But Peter stumbles back, looking more fearful of her than she’s ever seen. He slams against the door and presses himself against it. 

_ Peter? _

** _peter_ **

_ Prove to me you’re MJ! _

** _mj_ **

_ Peter, what the hell are you talking about? You know me.  _

** _peter_ **

_ Prove it! Tell me only something MJ would know. _

** _mj_ **

_ Peter…. _

** _peter_ **

_ Do it! _

** _mj_ **

_ You pretend to like coffee because you think it’ll make you look cooler and older. You tell everyone your favorite Star Wars movie is The Empire Strikes Back, but it’s really A New Hope. You prefer waffles over pancakes, but french toast over everything else. When you’re trying to figure something out, you chew the inside of your right cheek, never your left. You like tea more than you should. You’ve always got pens tucked into your pockets, and you always helped me clean the ink stains off of my hands when they got all up my arms and over my clothes. You always know when I don’t want to talk, and it’s all I can ask for. You still ask for Ned’s help with everything, even with Karen, because you like having his voice in your ear, even if you don’t want to admit it to him. You always humor May’s cooking, even when she hates it. Sometimes, when I fall asleep on the floor of your room, you tuck me into your bed and sleep in the chair in the corner. You hate sushi and like Thai, you’re a fan of ABBA but prefer Queen to everything else, and you tried to like classic rock and roll for Tony’s sake. You even bought an AC/DC shirt. You pay attention to the people around you, always. You care.  _

** _peter_ **

MJ stops and stares at him, eyes glassy with shock. Her fingers curl into a fist, and she closes her eyes, taking a deep breath to steady herself. When she opens them, she looks composed, expectant, and he owes her a massive explanation. 

But his brain isn’t really working now, neurons no longer firing. He thinks it broke somewhere along sushi and AC/DC. He just keeps staring at her, and she crosses her arms, hip cocked and head tilted. She just raises an eyebrow, and he decides to give her the only explanation he deems necessary. 

He shoves off of the door, strides to her, and cups a hand around the back of her neck, pulling her close and kissing her. 

** _mj_ **

She’s smart. She goes to fucking Harvard, for god’s sake. She’s certainly not idiotic, at the very least. 

But she’s idiotic for her reaction when Peter kisses her. 

Despite it being all she has wanted for literal  _ years,  _ she freezes, completely shocked. She doesn’t move even when Peter pulls away, and she can feel the shock of his lips on hers. He backs away, shocked, mouth already stammering open an apology, but she doesn’t register any of this beyond just taking it in. 

She’s completely shellshocked, but by some grace of God, she gets her bearings, and then everything sinks in. 

So she really has no other choice but to kiss Peter, hard, her hands in his hair. This time, it’s he who freezes, shocked, before she pulls away, staring at him. 

They blink at each other, for exactly five seconds, before Peter breaks, letting out a nervous, shaky laugh.  _ I really like you. _

Like is not even close to an appropriate word to describe what she feels for Peter, but neither is love, and she doesn’t have functioning brain cells right now, so she gets it. She lets her hands drift down from her shoulders to his hands, and claspes them in her own. 

_ I like you too. _

The laugh of relief, shock, and incredulity Peter lets out seems to take a physical weight off of him, and she knows she feels the same, the constant heartache washing away, the burning pain replaced with a cool, soothing balm. 

Before she can say anything else, Peter steps closer, cupping her cheek with his hand. He pulls her closer, wraps an arms around her waist, and touches his forehead to hers. They’re silent, and she savors it, closing her own eyes, trying her best to live in this moment and ignore the fact that he’s shaking. 

She wraps her arms around his waist, and they standing, breathing in each other, for what seems like both eternity and entirely too short. But Peter nudges her nose with his own, fingers tucking a strand of wayward hair behind her ear, and then he’s kissing her again, soft, and slow and sweet. 

She thinks back to when she had kissed Peter, all of 17 and drunk, when she had likened kissing him to a match being struck. She gets that same feeling now, that coil of heat in her gut settling there. 

There will come a day when she can never get enough of Peter, when the heat overtakes them both, but right now his kisses feel like the sunlight on her closed eyelids, the drip of honey down her throat, the way a warm drink settles in your stomach, the way you feel when soft petals brush against your fingertips, when a thunderstorm breaks and there is the smell of rain in the air, the way you feel when you throw your head back and laugh, drunk, on the beach at midnight with your friends. 

His kisses feel like everything she has been looking for her entire life, and even as he pulls away and presses soft, stray ones all over her cheeks, she doesn’t think she will ever get enough of them. 

** _peter_ **

As much as he wants to tell himself Parker luck sucks, it really can’t suck  _ that _ much, because it led him to here and now, when he’s kissing the love of his life in the middle of his dorm, soft and sweet. 

He can barely believe what is happening, and even as her soft sighs spill out, and he catches each and every single one of them, savoring them, filing them away in his mind, he doesn’t want to let out the breath he’s been holding in this entire time, lest he do anything to break the spell that seems to have settled over them. 

But MJ doesn’t seem to think the spell is going to break anytime soon, with the way she tucks her nose into his neck and wraps her arms around him. 

He yelps, her nose is cold, and she punches him in his arm and tells him to suck it up because he’s a fucking heater, and he tucks his own face into her neck, pressing his lips there. He’s sure she can feel the smile on them, and he loves it. He gives her a light raspberry, and she shrieks before punching him again, and he can practically see her eye roll. 

He doesn’t think he’s ever felt quite so happy before, so calm before. 

More than anything, he loves just being with MJ, and here, right now, hugging in his dorm room, is pretty much the best scenario he could have ever imagined. Because the girl he loves is in his arms, and if the way she clutches him tightly and pulls him even closer is any indication, she doesn’t want to let go of him any time soon. 

Hugging MJ is like breathing in fresh air for the first time. It is like Hollywood stage lights and a standing ovation, it is like sleeping in your own bed after a vacation, it is like finding an extra $20 bill in your pocket. It makes him feel the same way he feels when he comes home to May and the kitchen is full of smoke, and the smoke alarm is beeping. It makes him feel the same way he does when he sticks a perfect landing after doing several flips in a row. It makes him feel the same way when a little kid high fives him, the same way he feels when he finds the perfect bouquet of flowers to give to her (he’s never given her them before, but he’s certainly going to start). 

He loves her. He’d be an idiot to not treat her like a queen. But being with MJ has been the closest thing he has able to find to peace ever since he got snapped, every since Ben died, ever since his life took tragedy from something horrible to something catastrophic. 

The universe may have deemed him its punching bag, but it also gave him MJ, someone to lean on and trust, his North Star. MJ is everything good about his life, and he loves her for that. She is his best friend, and it is worth more to him than anything else.

She is his lighthouse in a storm, and she is what guides him home, bringing him to port safely. 

** _mj_ **

Ok, so here’s the fucking annoying thing about her date with Peter. 

The thing is, it’s a  _ good _ date, and Peter’s unsurprisingly a great boyfriend, and she kinda hates this fact because she knows she’s a terrible girlfriend. 

They have a fantastic time, initially, because Peter’s still her best friend. She can just lace her fingers through his without having to come up with excuses for it now. He knows exactly what she wants, and all they do is spend their time in the Museum of Fine Arts and grab pizza after. 

Boston pizza is nothing compared to New York pizza, but it feels, strangely, a lot like home, and it’s the closest thing to actually being in the city for their first date. It calms her, and she loves it. 

The only problem is that Peter’s a perfect gentleman. Maybe too  _ much _ of a perfect gentleman. She loves him, she really does, and so she doesn’t mind his absent minded touches, his casually brushes of affection. But every since they kissed in his dorm room, he’s become hypervigilant about that kind of stuff, and she doesn’t like it. She likes being touched by him, casually and purposefully. 

So when they arrive at her dorm after their date, and he tries to kiss her on the cheek and drop her off, she simply rolls her eyes and tugs him in, upstairs. 

** _peter_ **

The thing about going on a date with MJ is that it’s not that different from when they were just friends and would hang out. The only thing that changes is that he can kiss her, and that they don’t think about inviting Ned when they go out. 

But the other thing about dating MJ is that he needs to make this absolutely perfect. He can’t let it have a single flaw. He doesn’t want to scare MJ off, and he knows how skittish she is. Can he blame her, really? Their entire lives have been a cycle of tragedy and choices, and sometimes even he considers how difficult it is to remain positive about everything. 

Which is why he doesn’t really touch her, not like before. Consent is important, and he just wants to make sure he’s doing this right. 

Which is exactly why when she pulls him up to her dorm room, he’s a little shocked. Her roommate seems to be out for the night, and he stumbles in behind her, tugging the door closed. He’s nervous, shifting from one foot to the other, and he’s a little unsure. 

She just rolls her eyes, slings her arms around her neck, and tells him she likes it when he touches her. He stammers, because of course he does, but when she smiles at him, slightly shy but with purpose, he gets it. 

He grins back at her and kisses her then, hands going to her waist and pulling her closer to him. So far, kissing MJ hasn’t gone much further than just that, kissing, and the flare of desire in his gut hasn’t quite ignited. 

But they’re still young, healthy kids, and so when she presses herself closer to him, he lifts her up, her legs wrap around his waist, and all thoughts of not touching her fly out of his mind. 

** _mj_ **

She knows she’s fallen asleep dozens of times in Peter’s room back in the city, in his dorm at MIT, even woken up in his bed from time to time to see him snoring softly in his chair in the corner of his room. 

She’s fallen asleep on the rooftop of her apartment building in his arms more than once, and so she knows he’s watched her sleep. But in all her years of knowing him, of being with him, of falling in love with him, of intertwining their lives so intricately they can never be undone, she’s never seen Peter Parker sleep. Not for more than a second, anyways. She’s never actually watched him when he’s slept. 

She gets that chance now, about a month into their relationship. Sure, she and Peter have slept in the same bed together, after all, they were dating, but not very frequently. They’re busy.

And even when they’ve fallen asleep in the same bed, she’s always slept before Peter and woken up after him. Part of her thinks that he needs to watch her sleep, almost like a compulsion. 

But for once, she’s the one who’s awake, who’s watching as her boyfriend sleeps next to her. God, boyfriend wasn’t even an adequate word to describe who Peter was to her. He was more than that, more than her best friend. He was the other part of her. She was fuller with him around, a better expression of herself. 

He’s asleep in her bed though, silent, and she turns on her side and looks down at him. He’s completely exhausted, because he never falls asleep before her, but there he is, breathing steady and slow, face illuminated by the moonlight. For once, Peter isn’t full of nervous energy, and she reaches a hand out and smoothes her thumb over the space between his eyebrows, trying to smooth out the little creases there. 

She brushes Peter’s impossibly soft hair back and just watches him, so quiet and so peaceful. He looks so much younger than his age, still and silent in sleep. She files away the memory.

She doesn’t understand why he’s with her, not really. She’s selfish and insecure and guarded, and she has a hard time letting people in. Peter deserves someone open, someone eager and willing to share their life with him. He’s too good for anything less. 

Sometimes her insecurities come roaring back so terribly she gets physically sick from their power, like now, and she lies back down, Peter next to her, and stares at her ceiling, trying to convince herself that she’s worth him. 

(she usually fails)

** _peter_ **

He likes to think that he’s gotten pretty good at reading his girlfriend, and that he knows what’s going through her mind, but in reality, he knows he’s bullshitting himself. 

(it’s easy to fool people when they’re already fooling themselves. the whispers have gotten louder, languages he doesn’t know. and the screaming. there is always the screaming.) 

But this, even this he can pick out. 

The way MJ’s eyes droop, tired and drained. The way her smiles are just a little sharp and less frequent, the way she picks at her food and stares out the window, silent. 

Laughing MJ is the most beautiful sight he has ever seen, and sad MJ is the worst sight he has ever seen. It tears apart the muscle in his chest and doesn’t bother stitching it back together, letting him bleed from the inside out. 

She’s still taking her meds, so the episode hasn’t gotten too bad. Depressive episodes like this always worry him, and they’ve only gotten worse in the wake of the snap. It’s fair, after all, what they went through was traumatizing, but MJ’s responsible about taking her meds and staying on top of her appointments. No, this, this is something else. 

When he finally figures out what’s wrong, he wants to put his fist through the wall, but he knows he would end up doing more damage to the wall than to his hand, and so he bites his tongue and restrains his anger, at least physically. 

He just has a difficult time understanding how MJ could ever possibly think she’s not good enough for him. He knows she’s struggled with this for years, and it’s probably only gotten worse since they started dating, but it just doesn’t make any sense to him. She is good and kind, and she doesn’t even see it. And yes, she’s guarded, but when you get to know her and she opens up, she is the most compassionate person he knows. He knows she’s afraid of not being enough, of disappointing him, but she is everything good that he loves. She couldn’t disappoint him if she tried. Sometimes, he thinks he is the one who doesn’t deserve her, but he realizes that’s wrong. 

They deserve each other, and he has to make her see that, somehow. 

** _mj_ **

She’s not convinced until Peter slings an arm around her, whispers in her ear at night. Even then it’s hard for her to be convinced, but ironically, it’s the fact that Peter’s her best friend that convinces her. 

He’s the love of her life, but he’s her best friend, and he’s never lied to her unless he had to. And since she found out about him being Spider-Man, he’s never lied to her, not once. Peter doesn’t lie to her, and so for once in her life she accepts what he’s telling her. 

She relies on facts, data, and all of the data says that Peter truly does believe those things about her. And even if she might not believe them about herself, even if she thinks he’s a little crazy for seeing her the way he does, she believes in Peter. She believes in him more than anyone else she’s ever met, trusts him more than anyone else she’s ever met, and so she can swallow this.

He has insecurities of his own, and it helps, a little, knowing she’s not the only one unsure about this relationship. She’s beginning to see that the both of them deserve each other, because nobody, not even Peter Parer, is perfect, but perhaps their broken pieces fit together perfectly.

It’s a bitter pill to come to terms with, but she eventually is able to make peace with some of it. Just a little. 

** _peter_ **

He starts to believe her when she tells him underneath a spring sky and sitting on a park bench. He starts to believe her when she whispers it in his ear, tangled in his sheets, eyes drooping closed from exhaustion. He starts to believe her when she tells him over a bowl of noodles, a milkshake, in the library and at the aquarium. 

When you have lived your entire life with people leaving you one way or another, you become terrified that everyone is going to leave you eventually.

(leave, leave, leave. maybe one day you’ll be powerful enough to take)

He starts to believe her with all of these things, but he truly believes her one night in her bed, when the moon is full and it is silent. He can’t fall asleep, and instead is tracing light patterns with his fingertips over her back, fascinated by the delicate shadows that play over her skin in the moonlight. 

MJ turns around to face him and gives him a smile, cups his face with her hand and presses a kiss to his temple. She says it once more, and it is because she does it here, in the quiet stillness of her room, with no one but him to hear, he believes her. He believes her because she says it for no one else but him, for no one else to believe. She says it because she wants him to believe. 

He smiles then, and kisses her quick and soft. Her eyes, so dark and patient and full of understanding, smile at him, even as she smirks and wraps her arms around his waist, burying her head into his chest. 

** _mj_ **

The first time she actually sees it happen, they’re home for the summer and in Peter’s room. They’ve both taken to literally just falling asleep whenever they can, but there’s the small saving grace that it’s actually night, even if it is quite humid, sticky summer air wafting in. 

But he’s been so exhausted lately and so when he succumbs to sleep much quicker than usual, she thinks nothing of it and switches on a faint light, reading her book. She’s a little ashamed to say her reading habits have fallen by the wayside with college, which, in her terms, means she only gets through one book a week rather than five. 

Studying to be a lawyer is  _ hard, _ ok, and she wants to make sure she’s doing everything right. She likes it, likes the pursuit of justice, even if their justice system is absolutely fucked up and biased against the wrong people. She might be a part of the system, but she doesn’t have to fight for the sae injustices it does. 

If she knows the system inside and out, then she knows how to fix it. 

It occurs to her that she and Peter are alike in that way. Justice is too hard to come by, so sometimes, you have to make some of your own. 

She’s about three chapters into  _ Pride and Prejudice _ on her sixth reread (jane austen is good, and you can’t deny that) when Peter mutters beside her. She glances over at him to see he’s jerking in his sleep, muttering words into his pillow. Her heart sinks. She definitely recognizes this, had wondered if he had them before. 

Nightmares are typical superhero fodder, and she wonders if Peter is doing anything to help his. He lets out a cry then, hand shooting out and clasping her wrist. He’s crying her name, Ned’s name, May’s name into the pillow, but what breaks her heart is that he keeps calling out for Mr. Stark, over and over again. Peter doesn’t talk about him. 

She shakes him once, gently, to wake him up, but then harsher, again, and he finally stirs, eyes shooting awake and jerking up. 

** _peter_ **

_ I am death, the destroyer of worlds _

He can never really keep the nightmares at bay. It’s a fucking game of Russian Roulette for when they appear, honestly. The longer he goes between them, the worse they get. Sometimes they’re so vivid he swears he can taste the ash of Titan on his tongue, and sometimes they’re so blurry he doesn’t even know where he is. 

This happens sometimes, though. He doesn’t remember what really happened. 

When he wakes up, he’s pulled out of a nightmare where MJ, Ned, May, Mr. Stark, all of them flaked in front of his eyes, turning to ash in his fingertips, and there was nothing he could do to hold onto them. 

When he says MJ in front of him, eyes worried, he has to count to ten before he convinces himself he’s no longer dreaming, that he’s been pulled back into reality, and then he hugs her, breathing in her soft, clean scent. 

She just sits there, silent, for about fifteen minutes, stroking his arm gently, before she broaches the subject. He knows she’s right, that he should probably get therapy, and see someone, but who the hell can he talk to about this without revealing his secret identity? 

MJ smiles at him and just points out that the Avengers have  _ plenty _ of mental health specialists and therapists sworn to secrecy on their payroll, courtesy of Mr. Stark (and god, tony’s still saving him, all these years later) who would be more than happy to help him. 

He wonders why she can’t just help him, but that wouldn’t be fair to her. She’s his best friend, his other half, but she’s not his trash can. He’s not going to dump his problems on her and employ her as his therapist. He needs an actual professional to talk to. 

She runs her hand through his hair and he presses a kiss to her cheek, and they sit there, silent. He thanks god for MJ, though, because she’s the one who helps him see what he needs to see, gets his head on straight. 

He doesn’t know what he’d do without her. He’s not strong enough to weather that kind of world.

(he ignores the part of his brain that is thrumming with energy, too ancient for this world, for this universe. he closes his eyes and sees dying, disappearing worlds)

** _mj_ **

So this Wraith has been giving Peter a lot of trouble over the past summer, and she’s been doing her best to stay out of it, but she’s not very good at that. She knows he’d honestly prefer both her and Ned to not concern themselves with superheroing, which she thinks is incredibly hypocritical, considering he puts himself in the line of danger all the time. 

She’s always been terrible about listening to Peter, and she’s not going to stop doing her own thing. But something about this Wraith feels a little off, and so she asks Ned to use Karen to help look into it. 

And when she figures it out, Peter’s gone to confront Wraith, and she can’t help but follow him. 

** _peter_ **

_ MJ! Not again! _

** _mj_ **

_ How the hell did you know I was here? _

** _peter_ **

_ Karen alerted me that your comm was in range. _

** _mj_ **

_ Fuck. Well, forget about it. Peter, I figured out about Wraith! _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ, there’s nothing to figure out. She’s been killing various kingpins around the city and letting their bodies wash up in the East River. Hell’s Kitchen is about to explode in a gigantic gang war.  _

** _mj_ **

_ Peter, did you even bother figuring out who she was? _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ, where the hell are you? Let me know, I can get you out of there.  _

** _mj_ **

_ I’m here, Parker, and I’m staying here. You need my help. Now, don’t you want to know what very interesting information I’ve brought to share with the class?  _

** _peter_ **

_ I’d much prefer it if you left, you know. Helps with my blood pressure and all of that. You don’t want to send me to an early grave, do you? _

** _mj_ **

_ Peter, you’re gonna make that grave even sooner without my help, so shut the fuck up and listen to me! Wraith is Yuri Watanabe! She’s a former captain of the NYPD! _

** _peter_ **

_ A former cop? Why would she kill criminals?  _

** _mj_ **

_ Because she thinks the system is broken, Peter! It’s obvious. She’s not wrong, you know. The system is broken, and now she thinks vigilante justice is the only valid kind of justice.  _

_ Fuck! _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ, what’s going on? _

** _mj_ **

_ Nothing, Peter. Just banged my foot heading up the stairs. _

** _peter_ **

_ UP THE STAIRS?? Where the hell are you? Karen, track her comm.  _

** _mj_ **

_ Call your AI off, Parker. I’m in Hell’s Kitchen. The last building Wraith was seen near. I’m heading to the top. I heard something up there.  _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ, get the hell out of there right now. I’m on my way. Wraith is incredibly dangerous. Do not engage her.  _

** _mj_ **

_ Peter, don’t you dare tell me what to do. I’m my own person. I’m not your puppet.  _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ, is now really the time to have a discussion about this?  _

** _mj_ **

_ Well, you tell me when otherwise, Parker. You’re always like this with me and Ned, never letting us help no matter how much we want to. _

** _peter_ **

_ Wait, Ned’s here? _

** _mj_ **

_ ...maybe _

** _peter_ **

_ Fuck. Wait, ok, where is he?  _

** _mj_ **

_ He’s in the lobby of the building. Haven’t you heard him over your comms this entire time?  _

** _peter_ **

_ I just thought he was back in my room. Fuck, ok, I’ll get Ned, then get you, and then we are having a discussion about this.  _

** _mj_ **

_ No, we’re not, Peter. Ned and I aren’t your kids, you can’t parent us. If we want to help you, we’re going to help you, and there’s nothing you can do about this.  _

** _peter_ **

_ Ok, I’ve got Ned and I’m going to drop him off a couple blocks away where he’ll be safe.  _

** _mj_ **

_ Wraith still hasn’t shown. Where the hell could she be? _

** _peter_ **

_ Don’t worry about that right now, MJ. Come on, I’m almost done with Ned and then I’ll make my way back to you.  _

** _mj_ **

_ Peter, I’m not leaving until we figure this out. She’s gotta have an endgame. Her kills have all been methodical. She can’t just be killing for no reason. _

** _peter_ **

_ She’s crazy, MJ! That’s the reason. Now, where are you. Are you still on the roof? _

** _mj_ **

_ I found Wraith, Peter.  _

** _peter_ **

_ Where? _

** _mj_ **

_ She might...kinda be here on the rooftop with me.  _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ! _

_ MJ, respond! Come in! I can hear you! What are you saying to her? MJ, please, please come in. Please. _

** _mj_ **

_ Ok Parker, I’d really appreciate you getting up here, now. Corner of 11th and 48th.  _

** _peter_ **

_ I’m on my way, MJ. Hold on just a little longer.  _

** _mj_ **

_ Not exactly an option, Parker.  _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ, wait! _

** _mj_ **

_ No time, Peter. I’m jumping! _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ! _

** _mj_ **

_ Good catch there, huh, tiger? _

** _peter_ **

_ Good catch? You just jumped off of the roof of a fucking building! What the hell do you mean by good catch? You’re lucky I swung in in time! _

** _mj_ **

_ I just trusted that you would be there to catch me. How’s Ned? _

** _peter_ **

_ He’s fine. Says he’ll meet up with us later now that everything’s calmed down. MJ, what the hell were you thinking? _

** _mj_ **

_ I was thinking that maybe we should try and figure out what was going on with Wraith before we go after her! Maybe it would make more sense to think things through! _

** _peter_ **

_ Did you even get anything out of her? _

** _mj_ **

_ Who do you think I am, Parker? Of course I got something out of her. She’s looking for Tombstone. He killed her mentor. Peter, know we know what she wants. We can stop her. Or, we can help her.  _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ, you can’t keep doing this. It’s not safe.  _

** _mj_ **

_ Peter, I am your girlfriend, not a baby. Ned isn’t a baby either. We can handle ourselves. Don’t you dare tell me what to do.  _

** _peter_ **

_ Yeah, cause it looked a lot like you could handle yourself when Wraith had you backed into a corner! _

** _mj_ **

_ You know how I got out of that situation, Peter? I trusted you. I trusted that you would know what to do, to catch me when I needed you. This isn’t going to work without trust, Peter.  _

** _peter_ **

_ It’s not about trust, MJ. It’s about keeping the people I love safe! _

** _mj_ **

_ Ned and I are strong enough to handle whatever comes our way, Peter.  _

** _peter_ **

_ But I’m not! God, MJ, can’t you see that? Can’t you see it’s not about you, it’s about me? I’m not strong enough to handle losing two of the people I love most in the world. I can’t lose you and Ned too. My entire life, people have been leaving me. I can’t have you guys leave me too.  _

** _mj_ **

_ I’m never going to leave you, Peter. I’m not just your girlfriend, though. I’m your partner. Ned is your partner. We’re not people to wrap in bubble wrap so that you can feel good. And we would never leave you behind. But you might be the one to drive me away. _

** _peter_ **

_ MJ! MJ, wait! _

** _mj_ **

She’s so angry, she hasn’t talked to Peter in days. It’s the longest she’s gone post-snap without talking to him since those weeks she avoided him back in high school. 

Ok, confession time. She’s definitely not the first to admit when she’s wrong. In her defense, she is rarely wrong, but she also knows when she’s wrong. She’s terrible at admitting it because she’s got pride, but she knows. 

She’s not wrong in this case. 

At least, not entirely. 

Sure, going in blind without letting Peter know ahead of time might not have been the best decision. And snapping at him when he admitted that he was just worried about losing her might have also not been the best decision. That, she was wrong about. 

But she doesn’t regret leaving him alone on a rooftop in Hell’s Kitchen, flipping him off, ignoring him. The fact of the matter is, she and Peter both need a little bit of time away from each other, to think and to come to terms. 

She’s not going to stop looking and figuring things out, just because Peter asks her to. She loves him, but she loves him more than she loves his worry for her. 

She’s looking out for him too. 

** _peter_ **

He fucked up, and he’s pretty sure everyone knows it. Ned just raises his eyebrows at him everytime he comes back to his room and flops on his bed, May has already called him like six times over the past week (woman has a sixth sense of her own) and pulled him aside to ask about MJ, and even Mr. Delmar has furrowed his brows and gently asked him if he was ok. 

He fucked up, and now he has to figure out a way to apologize. 

So, when he shows up with hyacinths (that means forgiveness) and irises (her favorite), she simply gives him a look and accepts the bouquet. But he can see a small smile on her lips and she jerks her head up to the ceiling. 

They end up on her roof again, bouquet next to her, and they talk. 

He tells her, and she listens. And then she does something he doesn’t expect her to do. She  _ apologizes. _ She’s right, like always. He’s just absolutely terrified of losing her, but her words had stuck in his head for days, swirling around, haunting him. They’re what he thinks of when he sleeps and what he dreams of and what he’s thinking of when he wakes up. 

But they talk, and they talk. 

And she explains.

** _mj_ **

_ Peter, I love you. You are the first, and the only person I will ever love. I love you so much, sometimes I don’t know what to do with myself. But more than me loving you, I trust you, Peter. I trust you with my life, with the life of everyone I know. I trust you with my entire world. All I’m asking is that you trust me the same way. When I signed up for this life, Peter, this life of loving you, I signed up for all of it. I know you love me, Peter. I know all you want to do is to protect Ned and me, to keep us safe. But Peter, you can’t use me as an excuse. I love you, Peter, and that means I’m not willing to stay on the sidelines of your life. I signed up for a life with Peter Parker, and Spider-Man. That means I’m willing to take all of the good and the bad that comes with it. You’re Spider-Man, Peter. I love that you’re Spider-Man. But I’m not just your girlfriend, someone you have to protect. I’m me. Ned’s not just someone you have to protect, your best friend. He’s your partner. Peter, we’re in this together, whether you like it or not. We protect each other. We trust each other. Please, Peter, let us help. We want to help. We love you too much to just sit on the sidelines and do nothing while you do what you do. You have to trust us. We’re not your sidekicks, Peter. We’re not people you have to protect. We love you just as much as you love us. We’re your partners. _

** _peter_ **

He’s stunned into silence, and he sits there, looking at her. It’s like he’s suddenly seeing her in a totally different light, not just as the girl who has always been there for him, the girl he has loved for what feels like his entire life, but he’s seeing her as Michelle Jones, as MJ, strong and ready and beautiful. 

He strokes her cheek, smiles at her. He can’t convince her to stop, and he’s going to stop trying to. He’ll never want to stop protecting her, but he can’t pretend that MJ doesn’t feel the same way every time he goes out to fight the latest villain. He puts himself on the line every single day, and he cannot get mad at her for doing the same thing when she is just trying to help. 

He may never be able to be 100% ok with her putting herself on the line, but he’s not going to stop her. He doesn’t really want to, either. 

She’s right. MJ is his partner, and he trusts her with everything. 

It suddenly occurs to him that this is the first time that she has told him she loves him, and his heart breaks open, and everything spills out, almost cathartic. Driving her away had shattered his heart into tiny pieces, had pulverized it. And now, here, with her on top of her rooftop, their place, it starts to stitch itself back together.

He kisses her then, deep and messy and with his hands fisted in her beautiful curls, thumbs smoothing over her cheeks. He kisses her like he is a man in the desert and she is water. He kisses her like he has been waiting for her, and only her. He kisses her like he is seeing her for the first time after years apart, like she is his salvation. He kisses her like she is all he has ever needed, like she is the only thing he will ever need. 

He kisses her like he loves her and he can’t stand to see her leave him. 

_ I love you, MJ. _

** _mj_ **

This is her new happy, her new normal. 

They have been out of college for a couple of months, freshly 25 and full of exhaustion. It turns out even when you’re not a superhero, working for the Avengers is exhausting. 

She likes working with Foggy, likes being part of the legal counsel team. She’s no ashamed to admit Foggy make is 100 times better, but she’s not going to say that to Matt. He still thinks she likes him better than Foggy. 

This is their new normal, Peter working for Stark Industries and Spider-Manning around the city when needed, Ned joining them.

Oh, and she’s friends with the Princess of Wakanda. Who’s like, seventy five times cooler than Peter. She doesn’t understand how the two of  _ them _ are friends. 

But yeah, working with the Avengers is exhausting. You try making sure cocky superheroes don’t violate sixteen different international statutes and laws while defending the world. It’s gotten so bad sometimes she makes Pepper yell at them. Everyone listens to Pepper. 

Their apartment is nice, not small, actually, because being part of Stark Industries and the Avengers apparently gets you a good pay raise. But she’s glad for the privacy when Peter’s nightmares only seem to be getting worse, intensifying lately. They always do, around this time. It’s the anniversary, and it’s hard for everyone, but they’re adjusting. They’re moving on. They’re living. 

This is their new normal, so when she wakes up one day, having taken a nap at work, and everyone is gone save for Pepper, Morgan, and Foggy, she knows something is wrong. 

She knows something is very,  _ very,  _ wrong when she discovers Peter is gone, vanished without so much as a goodbye left in the wind between them. 

** _peter_ **

He understands what Mr. Stark had been talking about, finally, about being haunted by Thanos. 

There have been flashes, just hints of whispers in his mind for years. They have only gotten worse as time goes on. And as he stares at the being in front of him, he understands, finally, where the screaming has been coming from. 

_ I am death, the destroyer of worlds. _

Galactus haunts him, and even as he watches him, watches Strange and Wanda and Carol, this is a being more powerful than Thanos, more powerful than anyone else he knows. The only thing that can defeat him are the stones, and the stones are gone. 

He has to figure this out. Galactus has been living in his head for almost 10 years, haunting him, always half a step behind. 

_ I am death, the destroyer of worlds. _

The idea comes to him with such shocking clarity he snaps his eyes open, tries to breathe without shaking. The only thing that can defeat this being is Thanos, and he remembers Titan, remembers how Thanos had tried to kill Tony. 

Worlds. He signals Strange to come over, and explains their plan. His brain is running so quickly he is not even sure this will succeed, but he has to try something, has to do something so everyone will survive. 

_ I am death, the destroyer of worlds. _

He plants himself, taunts Galactus. Watches as Carol, Strange, and Wanda bring worlds together. Stays there, with Galactus, in the path of two colliding planets. He closes his eyes, thinks of MJ, Ned, May, everyone back at home. 

(he wonders what Tony thought of when he snapped his fingers)

_ I am death, the destroyer of worlds.  _

If he must stay here so that thing being dies, so be it. If he must stay here and die along with it, so be it. 

He died amongst the stars for the first time, and he can do it again. 

But then he feels as though he is being yanked back, and suddenly he is watching as two worlds crash into each other, a bright light that envelops everything around him, that nearly blinds him. 

_ Physics, bitch,  _ he thinks bitterly, venom dripping from his words.  _ Anything that gets too big collapses in on itself.  _

He breathes, nearly collapses himself when he remembers he left MJ back on Earth, without so much as a goodbye. He swears. If he had died…. No. It’s time. He’s got to do this.

** _mj_ **

He comes back to Earth a week later, suit torn, hair sweaty. He’s a mess and the most beautiful thing she has ever seen. 

And he’s fucking screwed, because she’s so pissed. 

She doesn’t even come out of their apartment to welcome them back to Earth, the heroes. She takes note, though, that there are less of them. She closes her eyes, resigns herself to the funerals and black dresses she will be wearing for the next few months. 

Tragedy was written in their veins, but the two of them were both too stubborn for their own good, so every time the world knocked them down, they got back up. 

But death surrounds them, surrounds Peter, and so she lets herself forgive him, just a little. He doesn’t need an angry girlfriend. He needs an understanding partner, a supportive best friend. 

He stumbles in to their place, dressed in civilian clothing, a small cut on his jaw. His eyes are bloodshot, and have bags underneath them. He looks up at her, and his face breaks out into a shaky smile. 

She opens her mouth to say hello, but he moves, quicker than she has ever seen him move, and reaches out for her, pulling her towards him. He tilts his face up ever so slightly and kisses her, like it is the last time he will ever kiss her. He kisses her like he is trying to steal the breath from her lungs and grips her waist so tightly she thinks she will have finger shaped bruises the next morning. He kisses her hard, like he is trying to mark her lips. He kisses her like this will be the last kiss he gets, kisses her life a man going off to war and who is about to die. 

But no. None of that is true. He is a man back from war, and he is about to live. 

So she cups his face and kisses him back harder, lets him know that the both of them are alive and breathing and will continue to do so for years. They are alive, and she takes the hand on her hip and presses it to her chest, lets him feel the beat of her heart. They are not lovers torn apart by war, but friends who stay together in spite of war. 

They will not be a tragedy, not if she has anything to say about it. 

** _peter_ **

He breaks away from her, resists the urge to press kisses down her throat and instead draws back, looks her in the eyes. His hands band around her waist, and he pulls her in closer, touching their foreheads together. 

_ Marry me, MJ. Marry me, and prove to me that we will live a happy life. _

The seconds tick by, the slowest he has ever felt, and he wants to think his heart is hammering out of his chest, but it’s not. It thumps, quiet and slow, and with his hearing, he realizes that their hearts are beating in tandem, perfect time and rhythm with each other. 

His lips stretch into a smile, and even before she answers, he knows what she is going to say. 

_ You know I can never resist proving you wrong, Parker. _

** _mj_ **

She marries him on a fall night in front of their friends, in front of maybe 20 people. Even that is a lot of people for her, but it’s nice. 

She loves him, and she’s married to him. She loves her job and she loves her friends and yes, she even likes the apartment in which they live in. It’s her life, that she has built all by herself, in the wake of tragedy and death, and all that the world has thrown at her. 

She looks over at her husband, catches his own grin, and smirks. This is their life, the one they will build together in the wake of plenty of tragedy, but also in the wake of plenty of happiness. And there will be plenty of things for them to face together in the future. 

This is their second wedding, the one they have for their friends and family and May, because if May didn’t see Peter get married she might have committed a double homicide. 

This is their second wedding, on top of a tower in New York City with superheroes surrounding them, with their best friend as joint best man and man of honor. This is their second wedding, where she kisses him against a backdrop of stars and makes her vows with the wind whipping through her hair like it did on prom night. 

Peter smiles at her, raises a glass from across the room, She rolls her eyes and raises hers back. 

** _peter_ **

Their first wedding happens under the night sky in London, inky black and beautiful. It’s fall, so she’s a little cold, so he gives her his jacket, leaving him in a white button down. 

Their first wedding happens on the London Bridge, where everything looks exactly the same as it did all those years ago. It happens right where he had given her the necklace, and she had smiled, and the ground underneath them had shifted, just a little, and everything changed. 

Their first wedding happens just before they hear a break in, and they look at each other, roll their eyes, and take off. 

Their first wedding happens at night, and he kisses her, light and soft, like he did that first time all those years ago in his dorm room, enjoying it, relishing it. He is kissing his wife for the first time.

Their first wedding happens when he kisses her at 3:30 AM underneath a sky full of stars. 

  
  
  
  


**Author's Note:**

> please leave comments and kudos! you can find me on tumblr: [parkersedith](https://parkersedith.tumblr.com)


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